Ingo Schulze - One More Story - Thirteen Stories in the Time-Honored Mode

I made several attempts to send Samir on his way. He had been so helpful the whole day now.… I wanted to go back to the hotel and then have dinner again at the Fish Market. Samir, however, had already reserved tickets for us, a performance of Sufi songs and dances — we didn’t dare miss it.

This tourist spectacle took place in an old fortress. I barely remember the space itself, but I do recall working my way to a niche as far forward as possible, in the firm belief that Samir and Sheila were right behind me. At first I thought the two had vanished. But then I spotted them directly across from me. Sheila was standing in front of Samir, but so close that it looked to me as if she were leaning against him.

Later, in a tiny restaurant, we ate pizza from tin plates and drank almost frozen beer. Samir told a legend about taking the measurement of the Pyramids, which Sheila had already heard in the Arabic version. It was truly pleasant when Samir gave you his full attention. And along with jealousy I likewise felt regret at how much I was missing because Sheila was thrusting herself between us. I was just about to ask him if there would soon be a book where I could read about his story, when Sheila announced that the following morning she would be visiting the Egyptian National Museum instead of accompanying me to the German school for girls.

The worst part was that Sheila was right, of course. Since I always read the same stuff and couldn’t always come up with new answers to the same old questions, Sheila’s presence in the audience had become more of a hindrance by now, turning me into a man of few words, which isn’t like me. Repetition leads to disenchantment, of course. All the same I regarded her decision as a betrayal.

The next morning, in the middle of breakfast, Sheila suddenly noticed Samir on the far side of the road, his gaze fixed on the hotel entrance. Although he had arrived an hour before the arranged time, Sheila ignored her hot pancakes, hastily downed her coffee, and moments later was bounding down the hotel stairway. It annoyed me that she kept pointing at me, until Samir spotted me too and offered the hint of a bow. I waved back.

I was angry at having to pack Sheila’s things for Alexandria, too; I was scheduled to read there that same evening.

Later I vented my anger on the German teacher at the girls’ school. It is really comical: Everyone makes fun of the question about what an author really means, and in the next moment someone asks that very question, and nobody notices.

At lunch — we had agreed upon the pizza place from the previous evening — I made the mistake of telling Sheila about one of the schoolgirls. She had worn a headscarf and had looked tired. Unlike her classmates she remained seated when she spoke. I left it to her to explain to the teacher what the relationship is between the written word and its meaning, and that whatever the writer himself may claim is irrelevant. Then she spoke about truth, and how truth is always an agreed-upon arrangement. What took place between the two of us wasn’t flirtation, but rather — or so it seemed to me at least — our amazement at an intimacy attached to her every word, an intimacy that seemed to come out of nowhere. I can still see her smiling and nodding when I laid into her teacher yet again. I told Sheila that I would have loved to get to know the girl, but that we didn’t even manage to say good-bye to each other because I hadn’t wanted to risk speaking with a schoolgirl.

“Why was that?” Sheila barked at me. “Why didn’t you try to meet her?”

“I was afraid it might arouse suspicion,” I said. “I didn’t want to embarrass her.”

“Oh pooh, ‘embarrass’ !” Sheila exclaimed. “So what if it had aroused suspicion.”

I assumed the matter was behind us, but Sheila wouldn’t let it go. It was unsettling to watch her get worked up like that in front of Elisabeth and Samir.

I then had to leave for an interview at the Goethe-Institut library. Samir promised to get Sheila to the train station on time.

At two on the dot I said my good-byes to the journalist. Elisabeth came over and sat down beside me.

“The driver will let you know when he’s here,” she said with a smile. I nodded. We fell silent.

“I hope I didn’t make a mistake,” she said, “in introducing you two to Samir.”

I found her insinuation tactless. “We’ll see,” I said.

“Did Sheila tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Sheila’s not coming along,” Elisabeth said. “We’re trying to resell her train ticket. I thought …”

“That’s news to me,” I said as composed as possible and clicked my cell phone on. I had two messages in my mailbox, but I didn’t know the code I needed to listen to them. I had never learned it.

“Alexandria is very beautiful,” Elisabeth said. She sounded so sympathetic that I had to swallow hard.

Sheila let her cell phone ring. When she finally answered there was an infernal racket all around her. She had tried to tell me, she shouted, but my cell phone was off. She’d be spending the whole time sitting around anyway, on a train or at the reading. Besides, the most interesting part of Alexandria lay underwater. Since she was here, she wanted to see the Pyramids, too.

She could scramble up the Pyramids during the conference, I noted.

She definitely didn’t want to miss the conference, she replied.

“You don’t get to see Alexandria every day either,” I said as if to myself, pressed the red button, and went down to the courtyard.

The driver of the Lada flung open a door, bellowed at me, and pointed to his watch. My cell phone was ringing. I took a seat in the car, slammed the door, and shouted: “Sorry, sorry, sorry!” although this wasn’t my fault.

He threw me a hateful glance in the rearview mirror. My cell phone went on ringing.

Compared to this ride, our first one had been sheer dillydallying. Fine by me. I’d be exaggerating if I were to say I was hoping for an accident. But I was somehow strangely certain one would happen, and I waited for it as if it were a kind of liberation. I know how stupid that sounds, especially in light of what came later. But in those few minutes an accident seemed the easiest, the only possible way out of this screwed-up trip.

There were moments that left me cringing. At one point I actually did shut my eyes when a gaunt old man dressed all in white appeared before our hood as if dropped from heaven onto the multilane road. He wore a white cap, held a cane in one hand, and in the other — I no longer recall. To me he seemed like some mythical figure, an angel from beyond.

I could see him landing on the windshield, could hear the crash — and suddenly the car halted right before his knees, as if his conjuring outstretched arm had stopped us. The next miracle was that no one crashed into us from behind.

As it turned out, the driver of the Lada had been given the wrong time for the train’s departure. And all of a sudden we were friends. He explained to me with something close to cordiality how and where I would catch my train — finding a parking space here at the station was out of the question. He promised to pick me up and zoomed off. Sheila called several times, but as far as I was concerned everything had been said.

Only now as I write these lines do I realize how the later incident has pushed everything preceding it into the background, and how difficult it is for me to recapture those days and hours.

In saying, “You don’t get to see Alexandria every day either,” I had, I believed, separated from Sheila. It had happened quickly. Just as Sheila had linked up with me at the first best opportunity, so she had ditched me at the first best opportunity. I rode toward Alexandria alone, and free. Good thing, I thought, I don’t have to explain anything to Anne. I would write her a postcard from Alexandria and mention the train, which I hadn’t exactly imagined would be the Orient Express, but not quite this dingy and ragtag. Even in first class the upholstery and curtains were beyond shabby.