Linh Dinh
Cairo, Alexandra, and a third-class train ride Booze is hard to find and once-magnificent buildings are falling apart, but you can rent a home for less than a buck a month, so it’s not all bad
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lying into Egypt, I was given a one-month visa, which I got right at the airport for a small fee. One is allowed to overstay for two weeks, however, so I’ll likely take advantage of this. I’m getting more comfortable in Cairo, and why not? In any unknown neighbourhood, you must figure out where you can drink coffee, eat affordably and buy the basics, and if you’re partial to green bottles with cheery labels, where you can get buzzed for just a slurry song. A conservative Muslim country, Egypt is not exactly a barhopper’s paradise, but there are some hoppy joints and, being right downtown, I have options. Since my hotel receptionist is an Armenian, he has no qualms about boozing, “But I don’t really socialise. Prices have gone up. I go home and stay home”. He lives near the Giza Metro Station. “Let’s go to Stella!” My treat, of course, except I haven’t been able to find it. It has no sign. Although alcohol consumption is allowed, it must be discreet, so no loud music or butt-flossed bartenders, such as they have in even
frostbitten Michigan. Nothing like Hooters, in short. (Hey, there’s an untapped market here. Go for it!) Most of Egypt is bone dry. Prowling around looking for the elusive Stella, I have been approached by unctuous strangers who began their pitch with, “my friend”. In any country, this is never a good sign. When I replied to a dark, scrunchy faced man in English, he blurted, “Ah, you’re an American! My wife is from the Windy City”. Yeah, right. “What do you do?” “I’m a writer”. I wanted to see where this was leading. “Fantastic! I’m an artist”. “Really?” “Yes. My studio is right there”, He pointed. “Let me show you”. Following this fellow, I was led into a small souvenir shop jammed with miniature pyramids, sphinx, cats, nefertitties, pharaonic icons luridly painted on supposedly papyrus and body oils with exotic or concupiscent names, such as you’d find in American ghettoes. There’s none tagged “Barack Obama”, however. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
24 ColdType | February 2021 | www.coldtype.net
“No, thanks”. Uncapping Cleopatra’s Secret, he held it to my nose. “Nice?” I shrugged. “It’s for at night”, he grinned. For most contemporaries, Cleopatra doesn’t conjure up Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra or Dryden’s All For Love, but a naked Elizabeth Taylor submerged up to her cleavage in a sumptuous marble bathtub, or getting a voluptuous back rub. That queen, too, is history, for “Golden lads and girls all must, as chimney-sweepers, come to dust,” wrote some antisemitic white dude. Don’t read him! This Cairo man was an exceedingly minor hustler. In Skopje, North Macedonia, I ran into a very short man who was wandering around wearing a USA cap. In perfect, accent-free and colloquial English, he explained that he had just been robbed by five gypsies in Ohrid. Though they had taken his IDs, three credit cards, $40, new iPhone and passport, he still had a wallet, first red flag, which he pulled out to show me a photo of an exceedingly gorgeous blonde in a US Army uniform (second red flag). As if to explain why he
