The Vesuvius Isotope (The Katrina Stone Novels) (29 page)

I approached the woman. “Do you have any more of those?” I asked, pointing to her head. She looked confused, and I pointed again, nearly touching her head, while she looked into the mirror to see the location of my finger. I pulled a fifty pound note from my pocket. Understanding dawned, and the woman reached into her purse. She pulled out a small case full of tiny straight pins and exchanged it for my money.

I returned to my former place in line. While I waited, I looked around at some of the other women in the restroom. I noticed several different styles of wearing the Muslim clothing and felt a bit relieved. If there was freedom in the way the pieces were worn, I could probably pass.

A moment later, I was inside a claustrophobic restroom stall and sweating profusely. It was easily well over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit in a space smaller than an airplane restroom. I pulled the long black galabia out of its bag and over my head, careful to avoid a pool of unidentifiable liquid on the floor. The flowing folds of the garment enveloped my purse, still affixed to one shoulder, and the shopping bag I had slung over the other.

I wrapped the hijab onto my head and pinned it the best I could, struggling to envision the way the woman before the mirror had been wearing hers. Then I added the niqab, all three layers down. Finally, I donned the black gloves. I felt like fainting. I had never been so miserably hot in my entire life.

I emerged from the stall, struggling to adjust to a new standard of vision through the screens over my eyes. I did my best to observe the other women in the restroom. None of them seemed to notice me, or to have registered my transformation. The woman who had sold me her hijab pins was already gone.

I further adjusted my clothing with the benefit of the mirror, until I convinced myself that what I wore could pass for an acceptable form of the Muslim woman’s fabric origami. Then I stared at my reflection for a long moment. The bags hanging beneath both of my arms were unrecognizable as such, but they made me appear much chubbier than I actually am. I scrutinized the woman before me in the mirror as objectively as possible. I could find no trace of Katrina Stone.

Three security guards were standing outside of the women’s restroom as I emerged within a cluster of niqabis.

“
Marhaban
,” one of the guards said and nodded courteously.

“
Ahlan wa sahlan
,” answered one of the women without looking up. The other women were silent.

The guard said something else to the women in Arabic. His tone and inflection suggested a question. The woman who had initially spoken offered a one word answer, shaking her head gently, and then passed by.

Behind and alongside her emerged a steady stream of women. Some were completely covered. Others wore hijab, but their faces were showing. Still others were completely exposed.

None of them had long auburn hair and blue eyes.

The combination of adrenaline and merciless heat was manifesting as a flu-like alternation between fever and chills. My knees were weak, and I hoped I was not visibly swaying in my step as I passed within mere feet of the three guards waiting for me by the restroom door. I concentrated on holding my breathing steady.

I knew without question that Larry Shuman had turned me in and I was now being hunted. My last known location, the location recorded by my passport and visa at entry, was Cairo. The tunnel vision induced by the niqab seemed to narrow even more as I walked briskly yet casually—I hoped—out of the museum.

A light breeze struck me. It felt like heaven. I habitually reached for my iPhone to check the weather. Then I remembered that both my phone and Jeff’s were now in a suitcase that had been sacrificed indefinitely to the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities. I had no earthly possessions except the clothes on my back, the contents of my purse, a few guidebooks, and a dwindling supply of cash.

On the street, I flipped up the top two layers of the niqab in order to pass through several lanes of traffic. That was when I began hearing the word
zuro
.

The first instance was from a street vendor.

I ducked down an alley and found myself in a small open market selling everything from questionable-looking fish to questionable-looking handbags. At a small stand selling jewelry, I pointed without speaking at a watch that had the correct time and was ticking. The vendor rattled emphatically in Arabic as he pulled down the watch for me to examine. I donned it over a black glove and handed him a few Egyptian pounds. He was still half shouting at me when I walked away, and I wasn’t sure if he would follow me and demand more money. But he didn’t.

The only word within his rant that I caught, the only word he said more than once, was
zuro
.

I looked around for a quiet corner devoid of other people. There appeared to be no such thing on the streets of Cairo.
I’m going to be spending a lot of time in restrooms
, I thought and entered a McDonalds.

Safely inside a stall, the one place I could think of that afforded privacy, I lifted up my galabia and withdrew a guidebook from the shopping bag. In it I found a subway map.
God bless
, I thought, upon discovering that the Metro connected easily with Ramses Station, which, of course, was nowhere near the Ramses Hilton.

On the way out of the McDonalds, I heard the mysterious word
zuro
again from a man at one of the tables. On the street, I was sure I heard it again from a passerby mumbling to his friend. And when I bought a subway ticket, I was positive the ticket vendor was referring to me when he said it. So on the subway, I asked.

I was pleased to find Metro cars designated strictly for women, and I wearily sat beside a kind woman who had moved over to offer me room. She explained to me the meaning of the word
zuro
.

“Do you speak English?” I asked.

At first the woman looked surprised, and she surveyed me up and down in my black Muslim ensemble as if she had just been spoken to by a passing bird. I realized with dismay that this would be the reaction of anyone with whom I tried to communicate in American English. “Little,” she said, her accent heavy.

“What is
zuro
?” I asked. “What does that mean in Arabic?”

“Eh, how to say?” she said, half to herself, and then she said something in Arabic to the woman beside her.

“It is color,” the other woman offered, her accent heavy as well. “Blue. Like your eyes.” And she pointed through the open slit of my niqab.

So the other two niqab layers came down, their screens like two layers of heavily tinted glass. But even with total physical invisibility, I felt exposed. I was now an Egyptian Muslim with no understanding of the religion, culture, or traditions I should have been taught from birth. And to maintain anonymity, I could not speak. In any language.

The Cairo train station was in shambles. The entire station was under construction—yet business as usual appeared to be taking place.

Stumbling like a drunk, I tripped over construction rubble, the two bags on my shoulders banging awkwardly at my sides like the prodding heels of a rider on a horse. I searched for a ticket window through the veil.
Do women actually get used to these?
I wondered, fighting the urge to pull back the niqab.

“Alexandria,” I said in a muted voice at the ticket window. The ticket seller gave me a strange look and rambled in Arabic for a moment, but I was relieved to see a ticket emerge through the window. I passed him some money. He handed some of it back.

“Alexandria?” I asked of an elderly woman who was clearly not law enforcement. She looked at my ticket and pointed me vaguely to the left, also rambling in Arabic.

“Alexandria?” At the first fork in a road paved with construction rubble, I was waived onto a platform.

“Alexandria?” A woman standing on the platform nodded. I hoped she was right.

Nobody looked at my ticket until the train had been under way for nearly an hour. During that hour, I hoped fervently that I was really headed to Alexandria. Over the course of the two-hour train ride, I read. I devoured the introductory history and the Alexandria-specific portions of my new Egypt guidebooks. And I came to realize I had just made a terrible mistake.