The Golden One

The process is somewhat complex. Usually we hire a boat and a car and driver for the West Bank and keep them for the entire stay. So the Mubarak was waiting for me at twenty past eight, its captain up above on the embankment to make sure no other boatman would steal me away. In order to reach the boat you have to go down a series of ramps and steps, then along a cluttered, rusty sort of pier, stepping over coils of rope and various debris.

Then the captain puts out the gangplank – a piece of wood about eight inches wide, with a few strips of wood nailed across it – at a precarious angle and anchored equally precariously. I do not scruple to grab at any hand offered me. (Every time I come back from Egypt I think, "Well, I’ve done that forty or fifty times, and I haven’t fallen into the Nile yet.") Once in the boat you are standing on the seat, which is about a yard from the floor. I do not descend gracefully.

There were six of us in the Land Rover – John and Debbie and me, their inspector, the driver, and a guard. The guard is de rigueur for those going into remote areas. It’s remote, all right – I never know where I am, anyhow, but this terrain would baffle most people. There are some roads of sorts, but a good deal of the time one bounces over rocks the size of toasters, up and down slopes and into and out of small wadis. John and Debbie are doing some extraordinary work out here; they’ve added whole new chapters to parts of Egyptian history, and I’d suffer worse than a sore bum to see some of their sites. However, I did bring along a pillow from the hotel to sit on! Here’s an entry scribbled at the time:

"I sit high on the gebel at the Place of Horses – a defile at the top of a steep climb. How I got here, I don’t know; with great difficulty is the right answer. Remains of crude workmen’s huts at the base of one cliff, graffiti over a stretch of the rock face. (The barking dog is cute – Arabic words meaning ’woof woof’ come out of its mouth. But its implication isn’t so cute, since it represents a watchdog and was scratched there by modern locals who resent archaeologists messing around in their territory.) There are many spirited, if crude, sketches of horses and a prayer to Amon, Lord of the Silent, who saved the writer from drowning. Some so faint, hardly visible to the naked eye – with modern Arabic and older Coptic scribbles on top."

Dec. 24. Christmas Eve. Had a fancy di

Dec. 25. Hard to believe it is Christmas Day, with the shutters wide open and the sun shining on the western cliffs, and palm trees along the corniche. The gardens are bright with flowers – tall poinsettias, roses, coral vine, jasmine, bougainvillea, and other tropical blooms. The Winter Palace has a number of Christmas trees, in front and in the lobbies; nicely decorated ones, too. Everyone wishes us Merry Christmas. Ramadan is almost over; nobody seems quite sure whether it’s tomorrow or the next day. Lesser Eid, a three-day celebration, starts the following day. Happy Ramadan is Ramadan karim. Xmas di

Dec. 26. I leave for Cairo this p.m. on the third of eight flights I will be taking this trip. The Expedition arrives tomorrow, and I want to be there to greet them. I’m sitting on my balcony, eating breakfast. What a way to live. The western cliffs form what appears to be a single massif directly across from Luxor. Paler paths winding up and across the face, clefts like parallel vertical strokes of a gray pencil. (Will I ever be able to describe it accurately?)

What must the Winter Palace have been like in Amelia’s day? No taxis, no paved road, but still directly below the terrace paved with ornamental tiles; to the right, the balcony of the Khedival suite; beyond it, the pillars of Luxor Temple and the minaret of the mosque. The British flag would have been flying instead of the red, white, and black of Egypt. Tour boats certainly, though perhaps not as many, and the office of Thomas Cook at the end of the curved arcade on the first level, where it has been for over a century.

The newspaper that is delivered most mornings is The Egyptian Gazette – gives me a kick to be reading the same paper the Emersons read back in 1914. Admittedly the service is erratic; energetic attendants keep taking things like glasses and laundry lists away, and never bring them back. (In fact most people don’t stay longer than a few days; my two-week stays throw everybody off base. They look astonished every morning to see me still there.)

The plane left an hour and a half late.

Cairo. Arrived at the Mena House Hotel (where Amelia and Emerson and Ramses dined with Howard Carter before the Master Criminal stole Ramses from off the top of the Great Pyramid) at about eight (Giza is a long way from Heliopolis) to find I had been upgraded to the Churchill suite. This place must be seen to be believed. Takes five minutes to walk from the living room to the bedroom, through dining and dressing rooms. The terrace is about the size of my whole downstairs at home, with the Great Pyramid looming. Bougainvillea in pots, including the white one I so admire. Over the living room couch is a huge circular mirror; the head of the bed is an equally immense gilded sunburst that reaches to the ceiling. Anything made of wood is carved; lamps are antique pierced brass; antique oriental rugs are laid over wall-to-wall carpeting. Bowls of red roses and baby’s breath in every room, plus huge arrangements of glads, etc; two plates of sweeties and fancy chocs, fruit bowl. The fittings in the bathrooms (one is really only a powder room) are gilded, swans and stuff. Marble floor and surrounds. I seem to have a personal butler, or so his card describes him. It’s pretty heady stuff for a girl who grew up in a small town in the Midwest.

Dec. 27. It was very foggy this a.m. Strange how guilty one feels about loafing. I swore I’d take it easy today but it has been something of an effort to stretch out on a lounge chair on the terrace and just lie there. (I think I’m getting the hang of it, though.) I can see the Great Pyramid from where I recline. Twelve noon and it is still foggy; the Great Pyramid remains a featureless silhouette, gray blue against a pale sky. A row of tour busses at its base. There is a yellow canopy over me and birds are flitting in and out. Every room on this side has a balcony, dark carved wood and pleasantly asymmetrical. This is the "Palace," the old part, which must look from the outside much as it did in A’s day.

Dec. 28. The Expedition arrived last evening, but I didn’t get a chance to greet them since they didn’t come into the lobby of the Palace and I was, er… in the bar with several friends who had dropped by. This a.m. they went to Giza. Reclining on my elegant terrace, I watched the buses roll up the hill, starting before eight. Dozens of them. It was understood that I wouldn’t accompany the group on all their trips; by the time I leave Egypt I will have been away for a solid month, and I am forcing myself to take it slow. I am now sitting on a balustrade outside the hotel waiting for my friends Salima and Nick.