His thoughts grew hazy, unfocused, liquid; indeed, he tried not to think. That would only make him nervous and look at his watch; better to detach from time and park his brain for a while until the middle-aged Press Ministry woman in the hijab returned. She finally did so, holding up the fax.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Basher, but General Moussa needs to see the original letter, not a facsimile.”
“The original letter?” Ari didn’t understand. “The letter we already sent to you?”
“Yes. But it is not here at the airport.”
“Where is it?” Ari wondered if that essential piece of paper had been lost.
“At the Press Ministry downtown.”
Problem solved, he thought. “Can’t you … request it?”
“Yes, Mr. Basher, this is the customary procedure.”
“How long does that take?”
“Several days.”
“Several? Several?” stammered Ari as he started to experience a new kind of vertigo, bureaucratic vertigo. “But we’ll miss our date!”
“What date?” asked the Press Ministry woman.
Why doesn’t she know about the date to fly over the Sphinx? wondered Ari. Should I tell her? If no one told her for a reason, you’d better not tell her now. “I will get the letter. I will get it from the Press Ministry and bring it here.” Ari pointed at the fax. “Who has the original?”
She wrote the person’s name on the fax. Ari dashed out the door, almost slamming into Walid, who was hovering in the corridor. They joined the teeming throng of chit holders. Ari, clutching the fax of his own letter, his own chit, tried to pass the shuffling crowd, but this was impossible as everyone else had the same intent, to get their little pieces of paper through this rat’s maze and get on with their lives.
Finally, Walid opened the portal and let Ari emerge from that netherworld into the bright modern terminal. He explained everything to Hamed as they ran outside to the lot and jumped in the car.
The two men drove away from the airport. They raced alongside thirty-, even forty-year-old black Fiat taxis. They passed trucks piled high with bales of cotton, three-wheeled carts made out of motor scooters, and even horse-drawn wagons rolling along on automobile tires. Toward the city center the traffic slowed to a crawl. Ari thought of getting out and walking, but the pace would pick up for a few moments and fool Ari’s hope.
He looked at his watch. Two o’clock. How was that possible? Had each cup of tea consumed an hour?
“This drive’ll kill the whole day,” Ari said to Hamed. “I have to hand-deliver them a letter that they have in their own headquarters. Insane.”
They passed the minaret of an ancient mosque. The call to prayer sounded. Several taxis pulled over to the side of the road, some of their drivers dashing into the mosque, others unrolling mats on the ground, then facing toward Mecca and starting to pray.
Traffic stopped short. Hamed pounded the horn. A great cacophony of honking erupted. Hamed leapt out of the car and started yelling in Arabic.
“What is it?” Ari got out and stood up on the car to see what was blocking traffic. A quarter mile ahead was a bridge that spanned the Nile. A small blockade of protesters stood in the middle waving banners and Egyptian flags. The protesters must have timed it with the call to prayer as their signal.
Under his breath, Ari cursed them. He was relieved to see a few police running across the bridge from the other side. There was yelling and shoving, then more police and the blockade broke up. Traffic started crawling again.
They turned by the river and followed it for a few blocks, stopping outside a big modern building. Its many balconies rose up overlooking the Nile.
“We are here,” said Hamed. “The Ministry of Information.”
Hamed ushered Ari in through security, but couldn’t leave the car alone on the busy street, so he left Ari to fend for himself. Ari showed his fax to anyone who would take a moment to speak with him. He found the office of an almost identically chic young woman also wearing glasses and a hijab. She, too, fed him tea, made him wait while she vanished with the fax and came back, then brought him upstairs to the office of yet another middle-aged woman also wearing a hijab and glasses. More tea. A furtive whispered conversation. A phone call. They went out and came back half an hour later bearing the original letter identical to the fax. Ari thanked them each profusely. He dashed downstairs, ran outside, and hopped back into Hamed’s car.
They beat their way back through traffic. They were racing the clock. The business day soon would draw to a close. Somehow they made it out of downtown without obstruction, back to the airport. They ran through the terminal to the little door.
Ari stepped back through the portal into the bureaucratic netherworld, shuffled through the corridor, and ran up the stairs. He reached the office of the middle-aged Press Ministry woman, who took the letter, gave him tea, and again disappeared.
Had he made it in time? Ari wondered. Would he be able to claim his sixteen camera cases to shoot his helicopter shot tomorrow, the assigned date on his permit to fly around the Sphinx? He started biting his fingernails.
In a very short time, the head Press Ministry woman came back holding the letter as if it were somehow unclean. “There is a problem.”
“That’s not the right letter?” Ari reached out for it, smiling his biggest smile but feeling like hell.
“No, the letter is correct.” She looked at him sternly as if he were a naughty child. “It gives you permission to bring your camera into Egypt to shoot a documentary. However, all this equipment is obviously for a Hollywood movie. The Press Ministry cannot help you.”
“But, but…” The smile was frozen on Ari’s face. He racked his brain for the best thing to say. “Uh, honestly … it really is uh … based on a true story.”
A porter came in and cleared away Ari’s tea.
Chapter 12
Dejected, Ari sat on a bench in Terminal One staring up at the arrivals sign. Samir walked up, nodded to Ari, and sat down next to him. Their mood was somber.
After a while, Samir spoke. “Have you read Kafka?”
“Read him? He wrote my day.” Ari faced Samir, his fixer. “How did it go at the Ministry of Defense?”
“The same as you.”
“So we’re not going to make our date tomorrow.” Ari inhaled deeply. “And the military won’t give us a new one?”
“No…” said Samir in a clipped, defensive way, as if expecting an argument.
“So we have a problem.”
The words on the arrivals board started to flip over. The latest flight from New York showed AT THE GATE status.
“Your men have arrived.” Samir stood up, avoiding a response. “Don and Charles.”
“It seems to me”—Ari stood as well—“that we are going to have to start doing something differently.”
“Yes.” Samir nodded. A suggestive silence hung between the two men.
Ari said nothing, but rubbed his fingers together in the universal sign of bribery.
Samir glanced around the terminal. “It’s best not to speak of such things.”
“I’ll leave it to you then.”
Samir peeled off and walked away toward the gates. Ari caught up to him.
“Speaking of money…” Samir veered abruptly into the mens’ room.
“Yes?” Ari followed him into the empty bathroom. They were now alone.
“The money did not arrive in my account today.” Samir pulled out a cigarette. He looked at Ari in the mirror.
“Ugh.” A financial crisis of confidence is the last thing I need right now, thought Ari. “I’m sure it’ll come tomorrow,” he said in a soothing tone.
“Tell me, Ari,” said Samir, flicking open his brass lighter and taking a furious drag. The tip of his cigarette burned red. “How did you pick me for this job? Did you first call Studio Giza?”
“Of course.” Ari admitted to having called the biggest and oldest film studio in Egypt.
“So why
didn’t you pick them over me?” Samir studied Ari carefully. Samir’s suspicion of not getting paid would increase or decrease in the next minute. He would certainly quit if Ari gave a wrong answer.
“Studio Giza didn’t call me back for two weeks. You called back the next day. You were direct, no nonsense. You got your bid to me in a week. One hundred and twenty-five thousand. Our accountants looked it over. It made sense. And, most of all … I trusted my gut.”
Samir took another drag. He tipped his ash into one of the sinks on the counter. “Your gut?”
“Right here.” Ari slapped his stomach twice. “My insides, my instinct. Also, I like to work with a guy who is on his way up and works harder than somebody who’s already on top.” Ari stepped over to the counter close to Samir. Ari knew he had to crush any doubt that might have arisen in Samir’s mind. “Are you worried about the money?”
“Yes,” admitted Samir. “I’m not Studio Giza. I must pay people in advance.”
“You think we’re not going to pay you?” Ari unzipped the secret pocket in his pants and pulled out the packet of one-hundred-dollar bills Beth had given him. “Here’s ten thousand dollars.” He slapped the green bills down on the red Formica counter. “In a few minutes, I’ll have twenty thousand more. Go on, take it.”
Samir glanced at the door nervously. Anyone could walk in. Ari was playing a game of chicken: Here’s my wad and I can throw it on a bathroom counter if I want. If I can throw it around like that, there must be more to come, was Ari’s implication.
Samir didn’t touch the money. He took another drag on his cigarette. “Ariel Basher. What kind of name is that?”
Ari smiled his big smile. He was glad Samir had moved onto the topic of Ari himself, where he could always play his strongest card. “It was Beshert, which means ‘Destiny’ or ‘Fate’ in Jewish. When my great-grandfather came to America, they changed it.”
“Why?”
“The officials wrote it down wrong, or they couldn’t spell it, or they wrote it the way it would sound in English—who knows? I’m ‘Fate.’ Ariel Destiny.”
“It suits you.” Samir was amused for a moment, just for a moment, then serious again. He gazed down at the money. “And Ariel? That was the name of the president of Israel.”
“It’s an ancient name for Jerusalem,” explained Ari.
“Have you been there?” Samir asked. Ari could feel the hidden weight of the question, Muslim to Jew.
“I shot two movies there. I even shot in the Arab quarter before…” Ari wondered if he should have mentioned that.
“Before what?” Samir was probing, evidently testing Ari for some sign of Israeli nationalism.
“Before suicide bombs, before 9/11, before everything went crazy. You can’t do that today,” said Ari.
“Why not?” Samir studied him for any hidden racism.
“Just use an Arab crew, you mean?” asked Ari.
“Not Israeli,” said Samir.
“Right.” Better get off this subject, thought Ari. “Like we’re doing here on this film. This is the coolest job we can do. Shooting the Sphinx from a chopper? The first to try. How cool is that?”
“No one has ever done it.” Samir was pensive, considering Ari’s words.
“It will make your reputation with foreigners, with the studios.” Sell him, seduce him, flatter him, thought Ari. “And you got that right away. You were quick.”
“To do something that has never been done before…” Samir was speaking more to himself than to Ari. Ari saw his opening.
“The first time is always hard. For anything, it’s hard. Samir the Hammer, I chose you because I knew you would never give up.” Ari knew he had said the magic words. Like everyone else, Samir wanted to be wanted for himself, for his own eccentric skills, for his honor.
Samir ground out his cigarette on the floor, then he slid the bundle of money back along the countertop to Ari. “Keep this. If I need it later, I will ask you for it, but get me the wire transfer confirmation, please, so we do not lose time.”
“How much is this payment supposed to be?” asked Ari, picking up the money and stashing it.
“Twenty-five thousand dollars,” said Samir.
“It will come tomorrow,” said Ari.
“Inshallah,” they both said simultaneously.
Chapter 13
Ari spotted Don, the lanky Australian cameraman, and the squat technician, Charley Foster, as they walked toward the customs desk. They both recognized the stack of sixteen cases piled up against the wall outside the impound storage room, still guarded by President Mubarak’s gigantic portrait. From the sour look on their faces, they both understood that something had gone wrong. The customs officials waved them through without a search. Ari and Samir stepped up to greet them.
“Don, Charley, this is Samir, our fixer.”
Charley rudely ignored the introduction. “And is that our camera?”
“So we’re not flying tomorrow?” asked Don in his Australian drawl.
“No,” answered Samir.
The three Westerners moved away from Samir slightly. Ari, Don, and Charley were the most disparate of men: a New York Jew, an Australian surfer, and a Texan Navy vet. Off the job, they probably would never see each other. They probably wouldn’t even like each other, but one fundamental principle drew them together. They had come halfway around the globe to get something and bring it back with them. For centuries the mantra of Western man was not just “hunt and gather” but also “extract.” This was the highest imperative, the very foundation of Western civilization. Whether they knew this consciously or not, every Egyptian was either a collaborator or an adversary, but never an equal partner, never one of them. Only they could return to the West bearing their prize.
There wasn’t much else to say. Ari, Don, and Charley piled into Hamed’s car and went back to Giza. The traffic had thinned for the night, so the trip to Mena House was quick. Ari gave them an hour to check in and clean up. Then he went to Don’s room for a visit. Charley handed Ari a beer.
“I see you guys found the local bodega.” They toasted, clinking their bottles together.
“How’d Frank like the New York footage?” asked Don.
“Loved it.” Ari knew he had to lay it on thick, as he was about to hit them with a pay cut. What else could he do? Things had gone wrong. “The George Washington Bridge shot was fantastic.”
“And the Empire State Building?” asked Don, beaming proudly.
“Spectacular.”
“Statue of Liberty?” Don pressed.
“Eh, not so much. But two out of three. That’s”—Ari raised his bottle and clinked Don’s—“not bad. Listen, guys, Beth is going to want you to cut your rate.”
“Okay.” Don nodded easily. Ari wasn’t worried about Don. He rode the wave, not the money.
“In half,” added Ari.
“Come on man!” Charley, true to character, objected gruffly and raised his beer bottle as if to hurl it at the floor. He didn’t. Charley was all bark, and Ari knew that, too.
“When’s your next gig?” Ari distracted him.
“Not till the end of the month. In Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur.”
“The Petronas Towers. A James Bond flick,” added Don.
“Good,” said Ari, “gives me a few weeks to maneuver.”
“What’s the plan?” asked Don. “How do you get our camera?”
Ari’s answer was a question. “You guys got something for me?”
Don and Charley both reached into their pockets. Each man pulled out a ten-thousand-dollar bundle of hundred-dollar bills with the bank band still around them.
“We should keep this money and get on the next flight out of here,” said Charley bitterly. But when Don handed over his bundle, Charley reluctantly followed suit. At the moment he laid the packet of bills on Ari’s outstretched hand, a dramatic sting of music played outside through the open terrace door.
Charley jumped. “What the hell is that?”
&n
bsp; “It’s the light show.” Ari laughed. “Come and get a load of this.”
The three men stepped out into the twilight. The lights on the Sphinx changed from white to green. A booming voice with a posh English accent echoed from the Necropolis into the night.
“You have come tonight to the most fabulous and celebrated place in the world,” the voice echoed off the pyramids. “Here on the plateau of Giza stands forever the mightiest of human achievements. No traveler, emperor, merchant, or poet has trod on these sands and not gasped in awe. For five thousand years I have seen all the suns men can remember come up in the sky. I saw the history of Egypt in its first glow, as tomorrow I shall see the East burning with a new day.”
Charley and Don stared out at the Necropolis dumbfounded.
“I didn’t know the Sphinx was a Brit,” said Don.
“He also speaks French, Swedish, German, Italian. At nine o’clock tonight he’s Japanese,” added Ari. “He’s an international lion of mystery.”
Chapter 14
Back in his room, Ari knew he would have to call Beth in a few hours and tell her that he had made no progress on the camera. With the time difference, he didn’t want to wake her up at four in the morning and ruin her sleep. He tried to nap for a few hours, but the bed seemed too big, too empty. If only she were there, he could calm her down, but from a distance, he couldn’t predict how she would react. She was fundamentally a “no” person. Her job was to say no to risk, say no to mistakes, and rein in crazy filmmakers from burning through millions of dollars without a plan. And he had none.
Ari flopped around on the bed for a while. Sleep was impossible. He put his clothes on and went out for a walk. He left the gates of the Mena House, turning down several offers of dilapidated taxis, and strolled out onto the ancient road down the side of the Necropolis. The vast expanse around the pyramids was closed for the night except for the light show. The Sphinx was speaking Japanese; Toshiro Mifune’s voice boomed through the Valley of the Dead. Tourist police, some on foot, some on camels, patrolled the pyramids and the smaller tombs that were still under excavation to keep the grave robbers away.
Shooting the Sphinx Page 5