NILE CRUISE AND BEYOND
By Brigitte Foulke
Ten minutes after seven Abdul walked in. It was two months short of five years since we had last seen each other. As he had told me over the phone he had grey sprinkled in his curly black hair. He had put on quite a bit of weight, most of it showing in his expanded stomach. He was getting fat. I got up and we looked at each other:
”You look good,” I managed to say.
“You, too,” he answered.
There it was again, the incredible tension and physical attraction that had always swung between us when we were with each other. He could feel it, too. I could tell. His tone became gruff when he said:
“Let’s go to the car.”
We walked out to the car. I could feel his inscrutable dark brown eyes on me. It was the same Peugeot he had driven five years ago. Juan walked to the back door while I was trying to get into the front passenger seat. Abdul looked over the car at me from the other side. The pupil of his right eye that had been in almost normal position when he walked into the lobby had wandered into the right corner of his eye, a sign that he was upset.
“You get in the back,” he told me, “Here in Luxor I cannot be seen with a woman sitting next to me in the car who is not my wife.”
Funny, he did not have that problem five years ago when he took me to the apartment, but then he had been married to somebody else. I did not object and climbed into the back while Juan sat in front.
We drove to the restaurant Hans and I had fallen in love with on our last trip. The tables were outside and some at the river on the water’s edge. It was to one of those tables Abdul led us.
We sat down at a square table for four, Abdul on my left and Juan on my right. Juan had the video recorder going again and I was surprised Abdul did not object. As soon as we sat down Abdul’s hand went to my breasts right in front of Juan’s eyes. It happened almost against his will. I sat very still and he let his hand rest on my left breast. Suddenly he removed it. I saw the waiter coming from the restaurant a distance away. We each ordered the lamb dish Abdul had recommended. When the waiter left Abdul gently took my left hand and guided it under the table. There he just held it until our food arrived. Juan and I talked about our time in Cairo.
“Did somebody follow you?” Abdul asked.
“No, I don’t think so. Everything was normal,” I answered.
He did not pursue it further. Suddenly his cell phone rang. It was his friend Wolfgang from Germany:
“Hello, Wolfgang, nice to hear you. I am sitting in a restaurant with friends from the United States.”
He chatted briefly with Wolfgang and then we had his undivided attention again.
At times during our conversation I would touch Abdul’s hand. I wanted to touch him badly.
“The waiters are watching us. Can’t you see?”
The waiters were standing way in the back, but I could not tell whether they were really watching us. It was dark now and the eating area outside was only dimly lit by a few lamps with weak light bulbs.
About ten o’clock we asked for the check. Abdul collected the money from us for our meals.
“I would have liked to invite you,” he said, “But I am not in the financial position to do so. I had to spend a lot of money on my PhD work.”
He paid the waiter and drove us back to the hotel.