Yes, I had to remember to check the expiration dates on food and not to drink the tap water, but I found the people friendly and welcoming, eager to share their beloved city with me.
Five times a day the call to prayer rang out simultaneously from minarets across the capital, starting with azan at sunrise. The song-chant rose sonorously in the warm air calling the faithful, and I found it beautiful.
Cairo itself was beautiful and ugly, timeless and ruthlessly modern, and even after two weeks, it was still loud and confusing, but I was beginning to find my feet, aided and abetted by my predecessor’s fixer, Asim, whom I’d inherited along with my tiny office and creaking desktop computer.
Fixers were an essential part of my new world: a local guide who could think on his feet and had hundreds of connections to make things happen. He knew who to talk to and who to avoid, who could be bribed and who shouldn’t be approached. He could find a plumber or a politician and the means to get me access to them. In short, without him, I would have already failed.
Asim was a tall, slim man in his early forties who slid seamlessly between my world and his own, sometimes wearing a turban with the ubiquitous galabiya, a loose fitting ankle length robe, or more usually dress pants with a short sleeved shirt. Once he wore jeans, but apologized all day for being so informal.
He’d also helped me find an apartment, a tiny one-bed place, but newly decorated and without rusting pipes, which Asim seemed particularly pleased about. It was in the busy, metropolitan district of Masr el-Gedida, which reminded me of Manhattan with its restaurants, bars, gyms, and of course, a McDonald’s. It was near the office too, and, Asim assured me, a safe district with low crime. It was all relative, of course.
The previous Christmas, a church next to the Orthodox cathedral in Abbaseya was attacked by Daesh supporters, killing twenty-five people. The shadow of terrorism was everywhere and I couldn’t become complacent. Not when my life depended on it.
Women’s clothes were more conservative and less westernized than the men’s, of course, so I was cautious. I wore slacks and loose-fitting cotton shirts, and carried a headscarf in my purse at all times. Not every woman wore them, but the majority did, and it saved being stared at all the time.
Without Asim’s careful guidance, life would have been a lot trickier.
Only the day before, we’d been driving through a suburb when I heard the sound of firecrackers. At least, that’s what I thought it was. Asim scooted down in his seat and told me to do the same. Somewhere nearby, guns were being fired. I pulled my headscarf out of my purse without being asked and I saw Asim’s dark eyes flash to me in the rearview mirror.
The gunfire started again. It was probably another riot, more people protesting against the present regime.
Asim put his foot down and got the hell out of there. I’d been a journalist long enough to know that you didn’t drive into gunfire unprepared. But I didn’t run away from a story either. I checked out Twitter while Asim made a quick call on his cell. Fast, accented Arabic poured from him, his eyes flicking to me the whole time.
Twenty minutes later, he’d secured me an interview with eye witnesses to the riot, a guy in his early twenties who’d managed to snap photos of armed police assaulting men with placards protesting about Russian involvement in Syria.
I paid a small fee for the pictures, then interviewed a second person to corroborate the story. My Arabic was spotty, but I was learning.
When Asim took me home, the report was sent to the New York Times within ten minutes.
Modern technology had its benefits.
But even with all the new stimulus and the new life, with all the hustle and bustle, and the energy needed to get up to speed with my new job, I missed Jackson. I missed him horribly. Cairo was ten hours ahead of California, so I’d be going to bed when he was taking a lunch break. His favorite time to talk was when he was finishing up for the day and I was still in my tiny apartment before leaving for work.
“Hey, baby!”
Just hearing his voice put a huge smile on my face.
“Hey, yourself! How are you?”
“Good. Missing you. How’s it going?”
“Not bad. I have an appointment to interview a General in the Egyptian Army today.”
“Is Asim going with you?”
“Yes, for the first part of the meeting. Probably not for the interview itself.”
Jack sighed.
“I wish that guy was armed, Maggie. I can’t believe that they haven’t given you armed protection.”
It was a constant grumble, but I knew it stemmed from Jack’s concern, from his love, even though he never said the word.
“What’s new in Pendleton?” I asked, changing the subject.
There was a pause and I could hear the smile in his voice when he spoke.
“I got my promotion: Gunnery Sergeant Jackson Connor, at your service.”
I screamed into the phone.
“OHMIGOD! OHMIGOD! That’s fantastic, Jack! Congratulations! I’m so proud of you!”
“Yeah, it’s pretty good,” he understated calmly.
“Pretty good? It’s wonderful! Thirty is young to make Gunnery Sergeant, even I know that. It’s amazing! You’re amazing!”
He laughed, happy I was happy, happy to share good news.
“How does it work? Do you have a ceremony?”
“Yeah, but it’s not a big deal.” He paused. “Mama and Lucy are going to fly out.”
It was a big deal, it was a huge rung up his career ladder, and I felt the leaden weight of sadness press on my chest. It was an important day for him and I wasn’t going to be there.
“That’s great,” I said, trying to keep up my previous level of excitement and enthusiasm. “When’s it taking place?”
“A week from Thursday.”
I fantasized about being there, but knew it wasn’t possible. I couldn’t leave Cairo so soon after arriving. Besides, I had scheduled interviews with a senior politician, and it would look very bad to reschedule that at such short notice.
I tried to be happy for him. I was happy for him. I was also kind of miserable.
He picked up on my mood instantly.
“Maybe you can come to my promotion ceremony if I ever make it to Master Sergeant,” he teased gently.
He was trying to make me feel better. Master Sergeant was the top rank a non-commissioned Marine could make, and it was rare. There was no guarantee he’d ever get there, although I had faith that he would.
“It’s a date, Sarge,” I said softly, and I meant it.
His voice held a warm, rich longing when he replied.
“You have to call me ‘Gunny’ now.”
I tested out the word.
“Nah, sounds too much like ‘gummy’. You’ll always be Sarge to me.”
There was silence on the other end, and I wondered if I’d insulted him without meaning to.
“I do have some other news,” he said tentatively.
“Okay?”
“So . . . months ago, before we . . . before you left, I asked about taking leave at Thanksgiving so I could visit with Mama and Lucy. But they usually give it to the guys with families, so I didn’t think I’d get it. But I did . . . yeah.”
“Oh!”
It would have been wonderful to spend Thanksgiving together at his mother’s, sipping iced tea on the terrace, elbow to elbow, making love in the twilight. My voice wobbled when I spoke again.
“Your mother will be so happy to see you for the holidays.”
He sighed.
“I didn’t want to tell you before you left, because I didn’t think I’d get it.”
He laughed without humor.
His words trailed off and I heard his heavy exhalation of breath. I wondered if he’d been nervous about telling me. He shouldn’t have been; I was happy for him, and I was going to see him at Christmas. Besides, the Cairo posting wouldn’t be forever. I’d do two years—that was a reasonable amount of time.
God, two years without Jack.
As if he’d followed my train of thought, Jackson spoke again.
“And there’s one more thing, Maggie . . .”
“More surprises? You do know how to give a woman a rush of blood to the head.”
“Just to the head?”
“Stop it! I have to leave for work in five minutes. I don’t have time for . . . that.”
We’d become very inventive during a couple of our late night calls. Well, late night for one of us.
He laughed heartily.
“Okay, no time for that. Well, I have a seventy-two hour pass for Thanksgiving . . .”
“That’s wonderful, Jack! I’m so pleased they gave you time off for the holidays. You obviously weren’t expecting it.”
“Kinda. But, I was wondering, how easy is it for you to get to Paris? Paris, France, not Paris, Texas, that is?”
My breath caught in my throat.
“It’s a four hour flight. Jack, what is this?”
“I could meet you in Paris,” he said. “With that three-day pass, I could be there for thirty or forty hours.”
My heart leapt with hope and longing. And then dived again. I couldn’t ask that of him.
“Jack, I . . . but that’s so much traveling for you. And your mother will be so disappointed.”
“Just say yes, Maggie.”
“But . . . your family . . . ? Oh, Jack! I feel terrible. I can’t ask you to . . .”
“Don’t, sugar. I’m not sorry. I’ll be able to see Mama and Lucy at my ceremony. I want to be with you for Thanksgiving. Are you in?”
“Yes!” I said happily. “Yes! Yes, definitely! Yes, yes, YES!”
And that’s how I ended up on a date with a sexy, hot Marine in one of the world’s most romantic cities.
Hope and Hopelessness
Seven weeks later, November
WHEN I TOLD Ben, the division editor for overseas correspondents that I’d be spending Thanksgiving in Paris, he sent me on a detour via the Netherlands to follow up on a story that had surfaced in Reuters the international news agency, and he wanted a more in depth exploration.
After the crazy chaotic color of Cairo, it was a different sort of culture shock landing at Schiphol airport, close to Amsterdam’s city center. The wide concourses and plethora of luxury goods took some getting used to.
I hopped on the local train, which was a twenty-five minute ride downtown, scanning the posters for the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum, wishing I was here for a little longer, but also wishing this job was out of the way so I could be hours nearer to seeing Jack.
We’d hardly managed to speak to each other at all during the intervening weeks. He’d been on exercises, with a comms blackout for much of the time. Sometimes I woke in the morning to find a short text or sometimes an email waiting for me. Mostly, I woke to the disappointment of not hearing from him at all.
I was becoming addicted to Jack, but instead of the cravings fading the longer we were away from each other, they intensified, doubling in strength every week we were apart. It wasn’t a good recipe for a long-distance relationship, and that worried me.
I checked the address I’d been given, then entered the coffee shop, pulling my small wheeled suitcase behind me, and glanced around.
I immediately caught the eye of an older woman whose round smiling face was welcoming.
My interviewee was an older Dutch lady named Jacoba, living on the southern edge of the Zuidplaspolder, one of the huge manmade polders that held back the North Atlantic, less than an hour from the city.
I knew that she was seventy-three, but she looked a decade younger with her bright eyes and mostly dark hair. She stood to shake my hand, towering over me.
She caught my surprise and laughed.
“I’m the little one in my family.”
I thought she was joking.
“All my sisters are taller. I’m only 1.78 meters.”
I squinted, working out that she was about 5’ 10”.
“I’m Jacoba Visser. Thank you for coming. I was surprised when I got an email from such a prestigious newspaper as the New York Times. But please, call me Coby.”
Her English was excellent and I keenly felt my lack of linguistic skills.
“Well, we really are interested in world news,” I said, smiling at her to soften the words.
“I’m glad to hear it.”
We ordered our coffees and Jacoba told me to try the oliebollen, the Dutch version of donuts, but with dried fruit and lemon zest, then sprinkled with powdered sugar. Heaven. I couldn’t help thinking how much Jack would have enjoyed them. Despite his denial, that man had a sweet tooth.
I sat back in my chair with a pen and notepad, as well as recording our conversation on my phone, ready to hear her story.
“I was born during the War,” she said. “I was very young, so sometimes I’m not sure if it’s my memories or the stories I was told growing up. But we were an occupied country, the Nazis controlling us with an iron fist, and my father had a wife and baby daughter to feed. He was a blacksmith and also skilled with metalwork, an enormous man with hands like hams, very strong. The Germans needed men like him, so we were better off than many because he was of value, but by the time I came along, many of the people were starving. It was five long years before we were liberated. I’ve heard the stories a thousand times from my parents.
“My father used to pretend to like the Germans. By day, he’d fix things for them and by night he’d be with the Resistance blowing them up again. Very dangerous, and all the time he’d be stealing food from the Nazis. My mother told me that one time he came home with a pocketful of butter that he’d taken from the plate of SS officer at an outdoor café while his back was turned. My father could have been shot for that, but we were hungry.”
Her eyes tightened as she talked, the old memories crowding out her smile.
“I was only four by the time the war ended, we were all as thin as beanpoles, skinny ghosts with bad teeth. But I do remember the casual violence, the daily struggle for survival. And I still remember the two Jewish families who lived in the village and disappeared one night, never to be seen or heard from again. I’ve often wondered whether they fled or were taken. Now I’ll never know.” She sighed. “I promised myself then that I would always support those in need, and I have. I raised my children to be givers not takers.” Her large hands folded in her lap. “I supported the asylum seekers when they first came. We all did. We welcomed them, housed them, clothed them, but now . . . we have too many immigrants,” she said sadly. “We are a small country. We have to build polders to make new land, and we are always afraid that one day, one storm, and the sea will take our land back. But they keep coming, hundreds every week. We house them, clothe them, feed them and give them money to live. I was one of the first ones volunteering at the shelters, before we became more organized.”
She shook her head.
“But now I sound like Geert Wilders, that awful man.”
“What do you mean?”
Until now, I’d just listened to what she had to tell me. A good journalist knows when to ask and when to talk. Coby had a story to tell.
“Wilders is a right wing politician. He says all the migrants should go home. I used to ask, to what? To broken cities? To killing? But now . . . I don’t want them here anymore.”
“What changed your mind?” I asked gently.
She pushed her chin out.
“It happened this summer. I was on my bicycle. It was warm out and I had shorts on. I was going to pick up vegetables from a friend who grows them. There were three of them lounging by the bus stop, drinking. And they called me a whore as I rode past. A whore! Because I had bare legs! I’m seventy-three years old! No one has ever spoken to me like that my whole life!”
Anger and hurt warred in her bright blue eyes, and she sighed.
“Where I live, it’s not a remarkable town, or even very interesting. But now it’s exceptional for the
large numbers of dark-haired, dark-eyed young men huddled together in groups, watching the passing cars. It’s not because they’re Muslim,” she said tiredly, “It’s because they’re young men without roots. They’ve left behind their families, their community leaders, everything they’ve known, and all they carry with them is their fear and anger. Go anywhere in the world and take a group of homeless young men, and you will see the same thing.”
Then she looked up at me.
“But I’m old and this scares me. I don’t want this in my home town. I want to cycle in my shorts in summer as I have always done. I don’t want to be called a whore. They shouldn’t be here if they can’t respect our ways.”
Her face sagged, her youthfulness drained by strong emotions.
“It’s not much of a story, I know. But I am not the only one. Other women started telling me that they were afraid to travel by themselves now. I have survived a war, Miss Buckman, but now I feel like the war has come to my land again.”
We talked a little more and I thanked her for her time. I didn’t want to be late for my next appointment, but her words about being rootless struck a chord.
As she’d hinted, the problem wasn’t just cultural dissonance, it was the lack of roots. These young men—and they were 99% young men—had been sent away to make better lives for themselves and eventually their whole families. But here, in a strange country without their traditions or their community ties, or even a common language, the guidelines for acceptable behavior had been torn away. There were few older men to govern them, no mothers, grandmothers or sisters who could remind them that half the world was female. They couldn’t work and were reliant on state benefits, stuck in a cycle of boredom and frustration while Europe decided if it was possible to assimilate the 13 million migrants who had arrived over the last seven years.
I also suspected that Coby was right: large numbers of unsupervised young men of any nationality would be equally untamable in similar circumstances. Even children—I’d read Lord of the Flies in high school.
My next stop was to interview some of those young men in one of Amsterdam’s many shelters.
I met with Pieter, one of the volunteers who worked with migrants in the city.