by Tom Rachman
"I'm with the interior ministry," the man repeats, then barks a command to the onlookers, dispersing them at once. He returns his attention to Snyder. "I don't appreciate these topics of yours. You wish to write about sexual perversions in Egypt. There are no sexual perversions in Egypt. Sexual perversions are a Western phenomenon."
"I wish, bro."
The ministry man smiles thinly. "Find another topic. Something pleasing. Something cheerful about my country. Not all this"--he winces--"mixing up of people."
"What topic should I write about, then?"
"That is your job, is it not? I suggest you study The Egyptian Gazette. They publish some excellent articles."
"About Mrs. Mubarak being a good housewife? Look, if you don't want me to write about Egyptian sex practices, give me something better."
"What are you looking for?"
"I want what everybody wants. I want the Mideast money shot: terrorism."
The ministry man turns sharply to Winston. "Put your notebook away! This is not on the record!"
"I want Gamaa al-Islamiya," Snyder goes on. "Bang-bang in Upper Egypt. I want to know about security cooperation with the United States. I want interviews with special forces."
"Step into my car."
Seemingly, this request does not apply to Winston, who is left by the fruit stand as the black sedan pulls away.
He remembers too late that Snyder has the house keys. He calls Snyder's mobile, but there is no answer. Around nightfall, Snyder finally picks up. "Hey, man, why didn't you come?"
"I didn't know I was invited."
"Can't hear you. I'm at the military airport."
"When are you getting back? I'm stuck outside again."
"I'm totally coming back."
"But when?"
"Weekend at the latest."
"I need the house keys!"
"Ohmigod, relax. You worry way too much. Just have fun with it. Listen, I'm getting on a C-130 in, like, two hours. I need you to do some research." He reels off names and organizations.
"What about my keys?"
"Call me in five minutes."
"And you still have my laptop."
Snyder hangs up.
Winston calls back every few minutes for three hours, but Snyder's mobile is turned off. Winston must ask Zeina, the wire-service reporter who rents him the apartment, for a spare key. By way of apology, he insists on buying her a drink at a nearby pub.
She orders for them in fluent Arabic, picks a table, and carries over their pints of Sakara beer. She sits, sweeping aside gelled strands of her black hair, revealing a rakish grin. "So," she asks, "you enjoying Cairo?"
"Oh, yeah. It's really interesting," he says. "I have a couple of gripes, but they're pretty minor."
"Like?"
"Nothing serious."
"Tell me one."
"Well, the air is kind of hard to breathe, with all this pollution. Sort of like inhaling from an exhaust pipe. The heat makes me faint sometimes. And the food isn't all that edible. Or maybe I've just been unlucky. Also, it's a police state, which I don't love. And I get the impression the locals want to shoot me. Only when I talk to them, though. Which is my fault--my Arabic is useless. But basically, yeah," he summarizes, "it's really interesting."
"What about Snyder? What do you make of him?"
"You know Snyder?"
"Oh, sure."
"And what do I think of him?" Winston hesitates. "Well, I suppose that, on the surface, I have to admit, he did come off as slightly, uhm, sort of ambitious. But now that I know him better I'm actually starting to think that he's--"
"Even more ambitious."
With unintended candor, he responds, "Sort of a jerk, I was going to say." He wipes his glasses. "Sorry. I'm not offending you, am I?"
"Don't be crazy. He's not a friend of mine," she says. "What are you guys working on, anyway?"
"I'm not even sure. To be fair, before he arrived I wasn't writing a thing. But I was making progress. Or I thought I was. I was getting to know the city, studying my Arabic. I was going to produce something eventually. Then he colonized. He stole my laptop. He has this strange power to trample me and make me feel obligated at the same time. He is encouraging--he's constantly saying I'm a shoo-in for the stringer job, that he has no chance, that I'm the obvious choice, and so forth. Yet the more time I pass with him, the more ridiculous I feel. And I don't understand why a guy with that sort of experience is even trying out for this position."
"Iraq," she explains. "He's trying to get into Iraq. Snyder has been looking for a way in ever since the war started. Did he tell you what he was doing before he came to Cairo?"
"Something about an award?"
"He wrote a blog about Iraq. Or, rather, about trying to get into Iraq. About him getting turned back at the frontier with Iran, with Turkey, with Syria, with Jordan, with Saudi Arabia, with Kuwait. Thank God Iraq has so many borders--it gave him lots of material. I grant him this: he's determined. The guy is more than just a pretty face."
"You consider him pretty?"
"Well, he has that whole gritty war-correspondent thing going. Some women find that sexy," she says. "As far as Iraq goes, his problem is that nobody can figure him out. The Americans don't trust him, the Iranians think he's CIA, the Iraqis are just spooked by the guy. Nobody understands what he's doing there when no publication is sponsoring him."
"And why won't anyone sponsor him?"
"The guy is a handful. He's worked for everybody, then gets into pissing matches, and gets fired," she says. "But forget about Snyder for a moment. Do you have any stories you're doing while he's away?"
"I have some ideas."
"But you haven't filed anything, right?"
"Not yet."
"Good. Look, you don't have a laptop, so come work out of my office," she says. "I want to keep an eye on you."
On Winston's arrival the next morning, Zeina glances up from her computer, fingers still typing. "Gotta take care of this bulletin. Sit. I'll be done in two minutes." She completes it and shakes out her fingers. "Let's go--I'm taking you to your first presser."
But not so fast: Winston has no accreditation to get into a press conference and is stopped at the door of the Arab League. Zeina does her utmost but cannot pull him in with her. Eventually, she sneaks a Palestinian undersecretary out to him. The undersecretary, who speaks English, patiently explains the goings-on inside. Winston scrambles his pen across the page but has never taken down quotes before and finds speech unexpectedly rapid; within three words, the sentence is off and running while his pen straggles behind. Eventually, the undersecretary excuses himself.
"What did you get?" Zeina asks.
Winston studies his notes, which consist of opening phrases--"We believe that ..." or "The real problem is ..." or "What you must know is ..."--followed by unintelligible scrawl.
"A couple of good bits," he replies.
She sets him up at a spare computer in her office and leaves him to write. He is still at it when she goes home for the night. "Call me if you're going to file anything to the paper," she says. "I want to check it first."
But by the next morning he still hasn't finished. In the late afternoon, he finally shows her a draft.
"Well," she says, after a quick read, "it's a start. Definitely a start. I do have a couple of comments."
"Please, go ahead."
"First off, a standard rule for a news article--and I don't mean to mow down your creativity here--is to identify the location and the day at some point. Also, you should cite the names of anyone you talk to. And you might want to avoid using the word 'thing' so much."
"Otherwise it looks okay?"
"Well, this is a test story--let's consider it like that."
"Do you think the paper will want it?"
"It is slightly old by now."
"It happened yesterday morning."
"Which is old in news terms. I'm sorry--I tend to be fairly negative, so don't take my comments too much
to heart. But I have to say, you spend way too many words getting to the nut of this story. Also, I felt the undersecretary's goatee received too much attention. Frankly, I wouldn't even mention it."
"I thought it was germane."
"Not in the lead. Don't get me wrong--I like your attempts to insert color. But I felt you were trying too hard at times. Like this bit: 'As he spoke, the yellow Egyptian sun shone very brightly, as if that golden sphere were blazing with the very hope for peace in the Middle East that burned also within the heart of the Palestinian undersecretary for sports, fishing, and wildlife.'"
"I considered deleting that line."
"I'm not even sure it's grammatical. And, for the record, the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict do not 'hark back to an ancient spelling mistake.' Not that I've ever heard."
"I thought that might draw the reader in."
"But it's not true."
"I don't know, Zeina--the undersecretary spoke so fast. And somebody went by selling ice cream. The noise. It distracted me."
"I know--you mention the ice-cream vendor in your article."
"A bit of local color, I thought. So I shouldn't offer it to the paper?"
"Offer it, by all means."
"Or maybe not."
"Look, come back tomorrow. We'll find you another story."
Admittedly, his first attempt flopped. But, as he heads back to the apartment, Winston is electrified--he has conducted a real interview. This was actual journalism. His mobile rings, triggering instant panic: maybe it's Menzies from the paper, demanding stories. No such luck.
"Wassup, bro?"
"Snyder, hi."
"In the Nile Valley. Military commandos. Islamists."
"I'm sorry? I'm hearing only bits of what you're saying. You're coming in telegraphically. Can you repeat that?"
"Aid groupie satphone. Charges by minute. Talk fast. How's research?"
"The stuff you asked me to do? To be completely honest, I haven't had tons of time to work on it. I've sort of been trying to do my own stories. Anyway, it sounds like you're in a rush, so I won't get into the details. Point is I've had difficulty doing the research. In part because you have my laptop."
"Did Kathleen call?"
"No," Winston responds. "Why? Was she supposed to?"
"Halt your story. Do my research."
"She said that?"
"Massive project. Award candidate. In or out?"
"Are you serious?"
"In? Or out?"
Winston settles into a carrel at the American University library. At first, he is irked at having to do Snyder's bidding, but is soon drawn into the material. He cannot deny a certain relief in being able to sift through academic tomes, fulfilling his journalistic duty without having to barge past security guards at the Arab League or grab man-on-the-street from women at the market. This library work is easily his favorite part of reporting so far. Indeed, he grows so engrossed that he's still at it three days later, when Snyder returns to town.
They arrange to meet for lunch at L'Aubergine.
Snyder arrives twenty minutes late, chattering into his cellphone. He sits and continues talking. After ten more minutes, he clicks off his phone. "Wicked to see you, bro."
"No problem," Winston says, though Snyder hasn't apologized for anything. "I've got that research you wanted."
Snyder digs a finger into Winston's hummus. "Awesome time down there. I ditched my military watchers on, like, day one. Met up with the Bedouins. Infiltrated the muj. Riding donkeys. Sugarcane fields. Choppers. Bunker-busting. Madrassas. Extremist training camps. You should have come."
"I got the sense you wanted to go alone."
"Ohmigod--are you kidding? All I want is for the news to come out."
"Did you meet any terrorists?"
"The real deal, bro." He pauses. "Not full-on Qaeda. But they're way up the waiting list."
"There's an application process?"
"Totally. OBL is whacked that way."
"Who's OBL?"
"Osama," he replies. "I don't know him that good. We only met, like, twice. Back in Tora Bora. Good times."
"What's he like?"
"Tall. That's what hits home most. If he hadn't taken a wrong turn, maybe a career in professional sports. That's the tragedy of this conflict--so much talent wasted. Whatever. The thing that pisses me off about GWOT is the ignorance. Don't get me wrong--I reject extremism in all forms. I only hope that, in a small way, people might read my work and hear the voice that cries out in every article."
"And what is that voice saying?"
"I'm gonna finish the hummus, 'kay?"
Winston piles three binders on the table. "Almost everything you asked for. There's a table of contents and an index."
Snyder eats without looking up.
Winston makes another attempt. "Do you want me to leave it here?"
"Keep it, guy. My present to you."
"Don't you want the research?"
"Don't you read the paper, dude? The story already came out."
Winston absorbs this. "I got a contributor's tag for a story I didn't even read?"
"But you said not to put your name on my story. Didn't you say that in an email or something?"
"Never."
"Yeah, you did. Since obviously it was, like, my story and stuff." He dive-bombs his hand into Winston's eggplant dip. "So, you gonna try freelancing now?"
"Well, I'm still going for this stringer job."
"Stringer for who?"
"For the paper."
"They didn't tell you? I feel so bad," Snyder says. "I'm pretty much the paper's guy in Cairo now." He opens and shuts his cellphone, ensuring that it's off. "Entre nous, this gig is just a time-killer for me. I'll be out of here in a year max. The New York Times will definitely want me in Baghdad. We're not in touch yet, but they'll call within the year, I guarantee. In a way, the wait is cool for me--by the time I get there, Iraq might be a failed state, which would be wicked on my resume." Their bill arrives. "Who's grabbing this one?" Snyder asks, making no move to do so.
Sluggishly, Winston takes out his credit card.
"That is so nice of you, guy. I would totally expense this, but since you're going to."
"Actually, I can't expense anything. I don't have a job."
"Ohmigod, then that is even more cool of you to pay."
Snyder leads the way back to Winston's apartment, unlocks the door, and belly-flops onto the bed.
"Snyder?"
"Yeah?"
"What happened to my laptop?"
"What laptop?"
"The one you took."
"Where'd you have it last?"
"You had it last."
"Don't think so, dude."
Winston sits up most of the night, conspiring to murder this usurping baboon. But the risk of jail time in Cairo is a powerful disincentive, so he shifts to planning all the cutting remarks he'll make the next morning.
Yet at dawn, when Snyder is up and leaping about, Winston only watches, half-asleep, silently loathing. Snyder says an aid groupie is getting him on a restricted flight to Darfur. "I'm in a failed-state of mind," he declares. He gathers his belongings and leaves without even offering thanks.
Winston stretches out on the still warm bed and shuts his eyes. He runs over his interactions with Snyder, condemning himself for cowardice. He flips about for a fitful hour, then rises, determined to leave this city.
The decision is deflating, then heartening--he has longed to escape Cairo ever since he arrived. Should he inform the paper of his departure? Do they even know he's here? He hasn't heard a peep from Menzies or Kathleen or anyone else since he arrived.
All that remains is to change his return ticket, pack, and get the keys to Zeina. He invites her for his last dinner as thanks, pledging to himself not to mention Snyder. Nonetheless, the baboon keeps popping into their conversation.
"One thing I have to say about him," Winston comments, "is that he does get amazing quotes. In
my minuscule experience at it, nobody said anything particularly interesting."
"Snyder's quotes? Some people claim they are, on occasion, approximate."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, do Taliban fighters really say things like 'That bombing was sweet, now let's kick ass on the Northern Alliance'?"
"I'm not sure. I've never met the Taliban."
"To be fair, he reports the hell out of stories, goes to the front lines--he is fearless in his own weird way."
"I know. I saw him talking to an interior ministry guy once at Khan el-Khalili. Snyder just kept badgering the guy--pretty rudely, I thought. But he ended up getting a story out of it."
"Good reporting and good behavior are mutually exclusive," she explains. "I'm exaggerating, slightly."
She is a decade older than Winston, and he admires her--she's so collected and competent. He wonders if, after dinner, there might be an opportunity to kiss her. He has not seen couples kissing on the street in Cairo. Where would he make his approach?
Then again, if he were to launch himself at Zeina, what next? Already, with her clothes on, she scares him. Whatever narrow hope he has nurtured evaporates when she says, "You know that me and Snyder had a thing, right?"
"Really?" Winston responds nonchalantly. "What kind of thing?"
"A fling thing. Whatever."
That's a Snyder line, Winston realizes with a chill. "I wondered how you knew so much about him."
"Majorly bad move. But he's tempting."
"Snyder is tempting?"
"I told you," she says, "the man is sexy. But now tell me, young Mr. Cheung, looking back, has this journalism experience been a nightmare for you?"
"Not entirely."
"Did you enjoy any of it?"
"I liked going to the library," he says. "I think I prefer books to people--primary sources scare me."
"Unless they're simian."
"Even then," he says. "Like one time, my thesis adviser was giving a tour of our lab to a bunch of undergrads. He was trying to demonstrate hierarchical dominance among macaques. On his cue, this male called Bingo started chewing on my thigh and corralled me into the corner of the enclosure. Before the entire class, Bingo showed that he, an unremarkable adolescent monkey, significantly outranked me."