Pt1 - 9  INTERLUDE: THE GRAND POOBAH

 

The sign outside the Arab Bridge Maritime Company promised a “luxurcous” voyage on the turbo cat across the gulf to Aqaba. After three days in the desert, including two nights at the Al Fairoz, we hardened adventurers were in the market for a few creature comforts, but the less-than-lavish appointments inside the terminal reminded us that the Arab definition of luxurcousness doesn't exactly coincide with our own.

We showed our tickets at the gate and straggled round a few corners into a dingy concrete security hall. An Italian tour group clogged the approach to the x-ray machines and behaved as though they were vying for a seat in the Titanic’s last lifeboat. Finally an exasperated customs officer threw up his hands like a primary school teacher in front of an unruly class of ten year olds, shouted in Arabic and waved them all over to the side where their forlorn female guide stood with a limp little flag on a stick. This cleared our way into the terminal proper, another concrete hall twice as long and twice as dreary as the one we’d just left.

The departure lounge décor was strictly underneath-the-expressway style; the only things missing were the bums – and we were about to fix that – and a fire in a 44 gallon drum. As we sat on hard slatted benches filling out our emigration cards two ABMCo reps worked their way around the passengers marking tickets off against a clipboard manifest. Eventually they culled out all the backpackers and led us off like half-arsed army recruits across the terminal to a small bunker. Tess and I, heavily impaired from last night’s ordeal on the mountain, hobbled along in the rear.

We joined the end of a queue lined up along the right-hand wall of a dim hallway and waited, papers in hand. The line began to feed off into an office on the left-hand side at the end of the corridor and as we drew nearer I could hear the echoing thud of a rubber stamp applied with such force it sounded like muffled gunfire. I had this little flash of us all being summarily executed and our bodies dumped on a heap behind the building. Then there were just Micha and Lea and we two waiting in the corridor opposite a small window which gave into the office.

A fat official, black hair lacquered flat to his scalp, sat at a bare desk flanked to his left by a skinny soldier armed with a machine gun and to his right by the ABMCo rep. He wore a black uniform studded with silver buttons and looked like a younger, bloated Hosni Mubarak whose official portrait hung on the grey wall behind him. From this angle I could see a pistol holstered at his waist. His bulk was contained by a black leather sash belt that passed over his left shoulder and it occurred to me the only fat Egyptians I’d seen so far were all officials in black uniforms.

The Grand Poobah was bored, perhaps because we were all backpackers and therefore unlikely to contribute much to his lifestyle. Indeed, he looked as though if he had his way we’d all be attracting flies on that pile of corpses out the back.

A young German couple stood before him. Without raising his eyes he motioned impatiently for them to produce their papers. He snatched their passports and slapped them on the table. He leafed through the first one, glanced up briefly to compare the photo, checked the emigration card against the particulars then, putting it aside, did the same with the other, all the while maintaining an expression of implacable disgust. Peeved at not finding an excuse to shoot them he slammed his stamp on the ink pad, brought it down hard on the passports and flung them back across the desk without looking up. The audience was terminated, not a word had passed his lips. The relieved Germans quickly gathered up their documents and scuttled into the daylight through an external door on the far side of the office.

By now you’re probably wondering what this little detour’s all about. Remember Ted the teddy bear? He’s the what, and here’s the why: Tess had bought him a toy passport with the object of getting it stamped at every border crossing along with our own. So far the customs officers had obliged – in Perth cheerily, in Malaysia less so, and we’d been too buggered to bother when we arrived in Cairo. Personally, I’d completely forgotten about it but now I noticed Tess take the toy passport out of its sheath.

I looked at her with an expression which read something like: Poo is not the sort of chappie who would be amused at the idea of stamping a teddy bear’s passport, not without a wad of baksheesh for his trouble anyway, and we’ve run our Egyptian currency down to approximately zero. Let’s give it a miss.

“I’m going to try anyway,” said Tess, extracting Ted from his pouch in her daypack.

“Good luck,” I said, “I hope I don’t have to make arrangements to ship your body home.”

Micha and Lea loitered at the exit door as we entered the august presence together and tendered our documents. Formalities duly completed our passports came skidding back across the desk. I snapped them up quick smart, just as Tess said, “Will you stamp my teddy bear’s passport please?” and shoved it under his nose. I stepped back to watch the fun.

Stunned at this violation of his sacred person and unsure exactly what to make of it he took the tiny passport, opened it and absently flicked the pages. His brow furrowed as he raised his head slowly to fix Tess with a stony glare, gaze briefly at me, then turn back to stare at Tess as though she were a bug on his windscreen.

Tess held the bear straight out in front of her like it was a police badge, right in Poo’s face, its little arms extended as though it were about to embrace him. Lo and behold I saw his expression soften ever so slightly, the faint suggestion of a smile appearing at the corners of a mouth used to scowling.

“O please!” Tess begged, sensing the chink. She took the passport out of Poo’s pudgy hand - the soldier’s jaw dropped as though he’d just seen Mohammed himself – and held it open to a clean page.

Poo fixed Tess with jet black eyes, puffed himself up like a rooster, stuck out his bottom lip and shook his head theatrically. “Pleeeaaase!” she wheedled. It was an abject performance.

Poo’s chair made the sound of a seam ripping as he turned to the ABMCo man. There was an exchange in Arabic. With an uncertain smile ABMCo said to Tess, “He says he must verify the picture. You must give him the toy just to look.”

I twigged to the game but it was too late to stop Tess reluctantly surrendering Ted into Poo’s enormous paw. Now he had his hostage the Poo could name his ransom, but what to do? Snatching the bear back was out of the question: I glimpsed the headlines in my mind’s eye – Australian Couple Gunned Down Over Teddy Bear. Micha and Lea stood in the doorway giggling.

The Poo made a great show of comparing Ted with the blurry passport pic, casting the occasional cocked eye at Tess. This was her cue to offer him a token of her respect, but neither of us had anything to give so we feigned ignorance. After a decent interval Poo, still clutching the bear, turned to ABMCo and fired off another phrase or two. Here comes the ransom demand.

ABMCo translated. “He says he cannot do it. He will lose his job…” Code for “A substantial donation please.”

“Come on Tess,” I interrupted, “We’ll miss the boat and we’ve got nowhere to stay and no money left. It’s not worth it.” I hoped ABMCo understood.

“He will be the only one without a stamp from your wonderful country,” Tess tried her last pitch. Poo looked at me, looked at Tess and turned to ABMCo who mumbled something in Arabic. He turned back and studied us for a few more seconds then suddenly took up his stamp and, without inking it, applied it to a clean page.

“O thank you, thank you, shukran!” Tess gushed. She scooped up the bear from the table where Poo had released it and reached out for the passport. He held up his hand. He drew a blue biro from his breast pocket, crossed the stamp out with a grand flourish and passed the booklet over.

We escaped out into the sunshine and headed across with Micha and Lea to board the turbo cat for Aqaba. We arrived on the dock just in time to line up behind the Italians.

Next Time: A Short Cut in Aqaba...