by Gore Vidal
In the diner on the train south to Aswan I had breakfast with a young government official from the Sudan. He was on his way home to Khartoum. He had a fine smile and blue-black skin. On each cheek there were three deep scars, the ritual mark of his tribe—which I recognized, for I had seen his face only the day before on the wall of the Temple of Luxor. Amenhotep III had captured one of his ancestors in Nubia; five thousand years ago the ritual scars were the same as they are now. In matters of religion Africans are profound conservatives. But otherwise he was a man of our time and world. He was dressed in the latest French fashion. He had been for two years on an economic mission in France. He spoke English, learned at the British school in Khartoum.
We breakfasted on musty-tasting dwarfish eggs as dust filtered slowly in through closed windows, covering table, plates, eggs with a film of grit. A fan stirred the dusty air. Parched, I drank three Coca-Colas—the national drink—and sweated. The heat outside was already 110 degrees, and rising. For a while we watched the depressing countryside and spoke very little. At some points the irrigated land was less than a mile wide on our side of the river: a thin ribbon of dusty green ending abruptly in a blaze of desert where nothing at all grew, a world of gray sand as far as the eye could see. Villages of dried-mud houses were built at the desert’s edge so as not to use up precious land. The fellahin in their ragged clothes moved slowly about their tasks, quite unaware of the extent of their slow but continual decline. In the fifth century B.C., Herodotus was able to write: “As things are at present these people get their harvest with less labor than anyone else in the world; they have no need to work with plow or hoe, or to use any other of the ordinary methods of cultivating their land; they merely wait for the river of its own accord to flood the fields.” But all that has changed. Nearly thirty million people now live in a country whose agriculture cannot support half that number.
“I used to think,” said the Sudanese at last, “that Egypt was a fine place, much better than the Sudan. A big country. Rich. But now I know how lucky we are. There is no one at home poor like this.” He pointed to several ragged men in a field. Two lay listlessly in the sun. The others worked slowly in the field, narcotized by the heat; the diet of the fellahin is bread and stewed tea and not much of that. I asked him what he thought of Nasser’s attacks on his government (recently there had been a disagreement over Nile water rights and Nasser had attacked the Sudanese president with characteristic fury). “Oh, we just laugh at him. We just laugh at him,” he repeated as though to convince himself. I asked him why Nasser was continuously on the offensive not only against the West but against the rest of the Arab world. He shrugged. “To impress his own people, I suppose. We don’t like it, of course. But perhaps it makes him feel big. Makes them…” He pointed to a group of villagers drawing water from a canal. “Makes them forget.”
Aswan is the busiest and most optimistic of Egypt’s cities. On its outskirts a brand-new chemical factory employs several thousand people. There is a sense of urgency in the city’s life, for it is here that all of Egypt’s hopes are concentrated: the High Dam is being built. When the dam—the world’s largest—is completed in 1970, vast tracts of desert will be made arable and electrical power will be supplied cheaply for the whole country. It should be recalled that the United States had originally agreed to finance a part of the dam, but in 1956 John Foster Dulles withdrew our support and the Soviet obligingly filled the vacuum. Not only are the Russians now financing the dam, but their engineers are building it.
The government had arranged that I be shown around by one of the Egyptian engineers, a cautious, amiable man who spoke not only English but Russian. “I like the Russians very much,” he announced firmly as we got into his car. He would show me everything, he said. Nothing to hide.
It was sundown as we approached the barren hills where a huge channel is being cut contiguous to the Nile. Ten thousand men work three eight-hour shifts. Most of the heavy work is done in the cool of the night. Off to the left of the road I noticed a fenced-in compound containing a number of small, modern apartment houses. “The Russians,” said my guide. It was a pleasant scene: women chatted in doorways while through uncurtained windows one could see modern kitchens where dinners were cooking. A large sign forbade the taking of photographs.
“How many Russians are there in Aswan?” I asked. He looked at me bewildered. “What you say?” He took refuge in pidgin English. I repeated the question very slowly and distinctly. He looked puzzled. He lost all his English until I made it impossible for him not to understand me.
“You mean how many Russians altogether? Or how many Russian engineers?” he countered, playing for time. “After all, there are wives and children, and sometimes visitors and…” I told him carefully and slowly that I would like to know, first, how many Russians altogether; then I would like to know how many of those were engineers. Of course he had thought that what I wanted to know was the actual number of technicians, and in what categories. After all, there were civil engineers, electrical engineers, and so on, but none of that was secret. “We have no secrets! Everything open! Anything you want to know we tell you!” He beamed expansively and parked the car in front of a small circular building. Not until I got out did I realize he had not answered the question.
We now stood on a low hill with a long view of the digging. It was a startling sight. Beneath us was the vast channel already cut from the rock. The sun was gone by now, and the channel—more like a crater—was lit by hundreds of electric lights strung on poles. A perpetual haze of dust obscured the view. Russian diesel trucks roared up and down the sides of the crater, adding to the shrill chatter of drills in stone. Behind us a whole town of new buildings had been somewhat casually assembled: machine shops, technical schools, a hospital. In the desert beyond these buildings, a thousand low black tents were pitched, each with its own campfire. Here the workers lived in stern, nomadic contrast to the modern world they were making.
We entered the circular building which contained a large detailed model of the completed dam. On the walls, diagrams, maps, photographs demonstrated the work’s progress and dramatized the fertile Egypt-to-be. I met more Egyptian engineers.
We studied the models and I tried unsuccessfully to sound knowledgeable about turbines. I asked how the workers were recruited. Were they local? How quickly could people who had never used machinery be trained? I was told that the fellahin were surprisingly adaptable. They were trained in schools on the spot. Most of the workers are recruited locally. “But the main thing,” said my guide, “is that they know how important all this is. And they do.”
I had been told that the dam was some forty weeks behind in its current schedule. But not being an expert in these matters, I could not tell from looking at what I was shown if things were going well or badly, behind or on schedule. The most I could gather was that the engineers were genuinely enthusiastic about their work. Morale is high. And I am ready to testify that they have dug a fine big hole.
We drove to the center of the channel, a good mile from the exhibition hall and at least a hundred yards below the surface of the desert. The air in the crater is almost unbreathable: part dust, part exhaust. A constant haze dims the lights on their poles. The noise is continual and deafening. Hundreds of drills in long, chattering rows break the sandstone floor of the crater, while Russian steam shovels tear at the cliff. I noticed that all the Russian machines looked improvised. No two steam shovels were alike.
We made our way to the entrance of a tunnel cut into a sandstone hill. This was a shortcut to the place where the first turbines were to be set up. At the entrance of the tunnel we were stopped by the only Russian I was to see: a gray, middle-aged man with a tired face. After a long discussion, he gave permission for me to enter the tunnel. “With every Egyptian engineer,” said my guide, “there is also a Russian engineer.” It was obvious who was in charge.
The tunnel was brightly lit; the noise of drilling was stunningly amplified by stone walls. I w
as surprised to see occasional puddles of water on the tunnel floor. I daydreamed: The diggers had struck underground springs. That meant there was water in the desert, deep down, and if there was water deep down, all of Egypt’s problems were solved. Obviously no one else had figured out the true meaning of the puddles. I turned to my guide. We shouted at one another and I learned that the puddles were caused not by springs but by seepage from the nearby Nile. The nightmare of the dam builders is that the Nile’s water might begin to seep at too great a rate through the sandy walls of the crater, wrecking not only the project but possibly diverting the river’s course as well.
Finally, lungs protesting, I said that I had seen enough. This time two engineers drove me back to the hotel, where we drank a ceremonial beer together and I complimented them not only on their enthusiasm but on their courage. At the earliest, the dam will be completed in 1970, which means that these men are dedicating their professional lives to a single project. “But we do this, as Nasser says, for the good of our people,” said my original guide solemnly. The other engineer was equally solemn: “No, for the good of all humanity.” Taking advantage of this suddenly warm mood, I asked again how many Russians were working on the dam. I got two blank looks this time. “What you say?” And I was no wiser when they left.
The next day in Aswan I was able to obtain an unofficial view of what is really going on. There is a good deal of friction between Egyptians and Russians. Much of it is due to the language barrier. The Russians speak only Russian, the Egyptians speak English or French, sometimes both, but few have learned Russian. The professional interpreters are hopeless because, though they can cope with ordinary conversation, they do not know the technical terms of either language. “We use sign language mostly,” said one technician glumly. “Everything is too slow.”
Another problem is machinery. It is well known that the Soviet has always had a somewhat mystical attitude toward that sine qua non of the machine age: the interchangeable part. It seems to go against the Slavic grain to standardize. Consequently, when a machine breaks down (usually in six months’ time) it must be replaced entirely. Efforts to “cannibalize,” as the mechanics put it, are futile since a part from one drill will not fit another drill. As a result, Swedish drills are now being imported, at considerable cost.
Humanly, the Russians are praised for their ability to survive without complaint the terrible heat. “But,” said one Egyptian, “heat is bad for their babies. They turn all red and get sick so they have to send them home.” The Russians keep almost entirely to themselves. One of the livelier engineers was the most critical: “They don’t go out; they don’t dance; they don’t do nothing. Just eat and drink!” He shook his head disapprovingly, for the Egyptian with any money is a happy fellow who wants to have a good time in whatever is the going way: alcohol has lately caught on, despite the Prophet’s injunction, while the smoking of hashish and kif has gone into decline, the result of stringent new laws against their sale and use. Also the emancipation of women is progressing nicely and women are to be seen in public places. Dancing is popular. In fact, the twist was the rage of Cairo’s nightclubs until Nasser banned it.
Sooner or later every Egyptian connected with the High Dam denounces John Foster Dulles. He is the principal demon in the Egyptian hell, largely because the engineers still wish the Americans would come in on the dam—speaking only as technicians, they add quickly, reminding one that they are, after all, Western-trained and used to Western machinery and procedures. Also they find Western life sympathetic. But what’s done is done…and we would look sadly at one another…such is Allah’s will. The Soviet is committed to the dam to the end. I suspect that they wish they were out of it: spending four hundred million dollars to build the largest dam in the world in the midst of a desert is a venture more apt than not to leave all participants exhausted and disenchanted with one another. And there, but for the grace of John Foster Dulles, go we.
At my hotel in Cairo I found a message from the president’s office. My appointment was canceled, but His Excellency would see me in the next few days. I telephoned the appointments secretary. When? They would let me know. I was to stand by. Meanwhile, there were many people in and out of the Cabinet I could see. Name anyone. I picked Mohammed Hassanein Heikal. He is editor of Cairo’s chief newspaper, Al Ahram. He is supposed to have written The Philosophy of the Revolution, Nasser’s Mein Kampf (a rather touching work reminiscent more of Pirandello than of Hitler). Heikal is the president’s alter ego. An appointment was made for late that afternoon.
I had a drink in a nearby hotel bar with an English journalist who had been some years in Egypt. He is a short, red-faced man who speaks Arabic; he demonstrates the usual love-hate for Nasser which one soon gets used to. “He’s a dictator, but then they all are. They have to be. He’s personally honest, which few of them are. But the main thing is he’s the first man ever to try to do anything for the people here. The first. Ever! And it’s not just demagoguery. He means it. But the problems! He’s inherited the old bureaucracy, the most corrupt in the world. On top of that there aren’t enough trained people to run the country, much less all the new business he confiscated last year. The foreigners who used to manage things are gone. Alexandria’s a ghost town. Even so, in spite of everything, he’s made these people proud to be Egyptians.” I said that I thought nationalistic pride, of de Gaulle’s la gloire sort, too luxurious an emotion in a dangerous world.
“That’s not the point. This isn’t manifest-destiny stuff. It’s that these people really believed they were inferior to everybody else. They thought they really were scum…wogs. For centuries. Well, Nasser’s changed all that. He’s shown them they’re like anybody else. We said Egyptians could never run the Suez Canal. Remember? Well, they run it a lot better than we ever did.” I asked him about Arab imperialism. Nasser has proposed himself as leader of the Arab world, a new Saladin. Through his radio and through the thousands of Cairo-trained schoolteachers sent out to the various Arab countries, Nasser has tried to incite the people to overthrow their “reactionary” governments and to unite with him in some vague but potent hegemony.
The Englishman laughed. “The joke of course is the Egyptians aren’t Arab at all. The Arabs conquered Egypt and stayed. But so have a lot of other races. Nasser himself is only part Arab. The Copts have no Arab blood, while everyone else is a mixture. The Egyptians used to be contemptuous of the Arabs. In fact, their word for Arab means a nomad, a wild man, a…” “Hick?” I supplied, and he nodded. “Now everyone’s trying to claim pure Arab descent.”
We spoke of the more ruthless side of Nasser’s reign. Egypt is a police state. Arrests are often indiscriminate. Currently, a journalist is in jail for having provided an American newspaper with the information—accurate—that Nasser is a diabetic. There is nothing resembling representative government. The middle class is in a state of panic.
I asked him about Nasser personally. What sort of a man was he? I got the familiar estimate: great personal charm, most reasonable in conversation, entirely lacking in personal vanity and ostentation…he still lives at Heliopolis in the house he owned as a colonel. He tends to be nervous with foreigners, especially with the British and the French. They put him on the defensive. He is a devoted family man, a puritan who was profoundly shocked during his first Cairo meeting with Indonesia’s President Sukarno, who gaily asked, “Now, where are the girls?” He worries about gaining weight. He admires Tito because he “showed me how to get help from both sides—without joining either.” Nasser in his passion for Egypt has also declared, “I will treat with the devil himself if I have to for my country.” But he is wary of foreign commitments. He has said: “An alliance between a big and a small power is an alliance between the wolf and the sheep, and it is bound to end with the wolf devouring the sheep.” His relations with the Soviet are correct but not warm. He has imprisoned every Egyptian Communist he can find. He took advantage of a Soviet offer to give technical training to Egyptian students,
but when he discovered that their first six months in Moscow were devoted to learning Marxist theory, he withdrew the students and rerouted them to the West. He is thought to be genuinely religious. He is obsessed, as well he might be, by the thought of sudden death.
“He’s at the Barrage right now. That’s his place downriver. You may as well know you’re going to have a hard time seeing him.” He looked about to make sure that the ubiquitous barman—a government informer—was out of earshot. Then he whispered: “Nasser was shot at yesterday.” I contained my surprise and the Englishman played this dramatic scene with admirable offhandedness. “Complete censorship, of course. It won’t hit the papers. He wasn’t hurt, but his bodyguard was killed. So he’s holed up at the Barrage for the rest of this week.” Who shot at him? The Englishman shrugged. Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Israel—any number of governments would like Nasser dead.
I sat in the anteroom of the editor of Al Ahram. His secretary went on with her work. I glanced at her desk (I can read upside down if the type is sufficiently large) and noted a copy of the American magazine Daedalus. Seeing my interest, she gave it to me. It featured an article on birth control. Heikal himself had made many marginal notes. “A problem, isn’t it?” I said. She nodded. “A problem.”