Giza
AGATHA MADE ME DO IT All the elements of a fine mystery were there. An exotic setting. A daring Nile River cruise. And a small group of strangers embarking on an itinerary thick with intrigue. by JAMES ROSS
I
touched down in Cairo on a splendid February afternoon to the city’s pandemoniac tangle of traffic and made my way, ever so carefully, to the pre-arranged hotel. It was fortuitous that I had arrived early, as the timing gave me the chance to sit in the plush lobby with a gin and tonic and size up my fellow travelers.
A small group of strangers Of note, there was the requisite physician, in this case, a veterinary surgeon from Ohio, who had seen more than his fair share of mongrels. A loquacious businesswoman from Vancouver and a wealthy widow with a southern drawl arrived separately, but soon found a commonality in their singularity. When a much-too-happy couple from Australia waltzed in, I made a note to steer clear, as my particular modus tends toward the somewhat subdued. Next, arrived an English military man with a lovely young woman who,
I came to learn, was his third wife. What had happened to the first two, we may never know. Finally, a Parisian tour guide strolled to the registration counter, flush from the effort of the airport transit and yet somehow still remarkably poised.
literal City of the Dead and the eternal resting place of caliphs, sultans, scholars, mystics, and late modern day Cairenes. Apparently, the burial grounds are fraught with controversy over a construction project nearby. Locals are justifiably mortified.
A deeply obsessed scholar
The following day, as the Australians cooed, we learned the true depth of Ms. Fayez’s Egypt obsession during an astounding tour of Cairo’s legendary tombs. Both the widow and the veterinarian pursued the scholar with follow-up questions, which, in the good doctor’s case, seemed to come more from a desire to
As we gathered at the appointed hour in a private dining room, we were introduced to Ms. Fayez, a pleasant-faced Egyptologist who was not unjustly preoccupied with death. This fact became apparent during her initial lecture regarding Cairo’s pyramids, hieroglyphics, and necropolis—a
ENSEMBLE VAC ATIONS I FALL 2021
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