Swallowers of the Damned

It is downright dreamy. To travel the river like this. The roof of the felucca blocks the African sun and the open walls invite a cool cross-breeze. Vertically, the drafty cabin doesn’t allow room to stand, but there is plenty of horizontal space for the six of us to spread out atop the cushions. Us dudes: half-a-dozen 21st century sultans luxuriating; a harem cruise lacking only in concubines. I keep drifting asleep as the skipper catches the wind to pull our sails east then west then east again, crisscrossing this stretch of river as we make our way north out of Aswan. I keep drifting awake to the voice of Khalid discussing the Egyptian Book of the Dead; or other macabre data. The Nile crocodile, of course, prefers Christian flesh to Muslim, Khalid says with his enchanting Egyptian grin. Why is this you ask?, he says. Because Christians taste like pig! Khalid laughs and shrugs. It must be so. Especially the English. The English love bacon. And the English are beloved by crocodiles. Ask any crocodile, but do not listen too closely to the answer.

How do the crocs feel about eaters of Vegemite then?, Chuck Morris asks. Asking for a friend, he says. Remus, the tech-bro from Cape Town, raises his eyes from his phone to say to the tattooed Aussie, any crocodile who bites into you, Chuck, is going think he’s nipped a squid from all the ink bleeding out. Ha! Strewth, brother!, Chuck laughs and leans back into a leisurely slumber. 

Beside me, Francis’ gaze is fixed on the horizon. It is futile, he says of his paralyzed poetry pen. Capturing this moment. It is like putting a firefly in a jar. 

Our skipper, Shazly, drops the sails. He & his first mate, Hamid, use oars to row the felucca closer to shore. Once near enough to the banks, Hamid takes a great leap to the fertile black soil of ancient Kemet. With a hempen rope, our felucca is fastened to a convenient tree. We will spend the night here. I am quick to disembark. I do not bother with shoes. Taking after the fashion of the barefoot Nubian sailors, I prefer grounding my soles into the fertile earth. Yo Chuck!, I holler at the Aussie. Come stand guard while I piss on this tree. Stand guard?, Chuck says, as he follows in his Egyptian robes. I don’t think there’s crocs north of the dam, Vic. Sure there are!, I insist. And hippos. If I get chased by a hippopotamus, I’d feel better knowing I can run faster than you in your skirts. Nah mate, Chuck frowns as he shakes out his flowing galabiya. The hippo is gonna think me Egyptian straight-off, isn’t he?, he says. You’re the one dressed like a pork-eating Christian. I laugh and remind Chuck hippos are herbivores. They wouldn’t like pork. Yeah nah, mate, Chuck says, everyone likes pork. 

If anything is going to give us a fighting chance against a hippo, it is going to be Chuck Morris. In the South Australian wrestling circuit, Chuck plays a villainous heel and his training has given him the ability to squat the weight of a camel. Earlier in our expedition, Chuck was our egyptology team’s backup plan when crawling through the tight tunnels of the Great Pyramid of Khufu. Within the pyramid, there is one way up into the King’s Chambers and it’s the same way out. It is a harrowing locomotion. As you climb diagonally up into the dark shaft, hordes of sweaty & pasty-skinned tourists are headed the other way, sliding down the chamber flummoxed, hyperventilating, panicked, clobbering your hands against the ladder rungs with their plastic shoes as they rush for the exit. Spooked cattle stampeding in ill-fitted khakis. The interior of the pyramid is inhospitable. The confined heat has nowhere to go but penetrate your cooler 99 degree flesh. There is barely enough space to think, which is a blessing, limiting the capacity for dreaming of nightmarish hypotheticals of death under a mountain of stone. Even if the stone holds, you are in a giant ant-hill amongst frenzied cow-people with Buick-hips who reek of continental breakfast buffet flatulence. If a heart were to burst along this cattle train, the pyramid’s plumbing would back-up. We’d be trapped. Nowhere to go forward; meanwhile the influx of pushy tourists behind us presses against our backs. We could be crushed within a fleshy anvil of humanity. 

Except: Chuck. 

We had Chuck in our pyramid. He was ready to rear-up and kick the rising tide of cattle back down the shafts to the entrance they funneled inwards from. Chuck Morris was our liquid plumber to use in case of emergency. Fortunately, we did not require this heel turn. 

Even so, in the evening after climbing into Khufu’s tomb, I had to drink many beers before I could ease my nerves back into place.  

Urinating along the banks of the Nile, one’s mind swirls with the eddies of the river, pondering what dangers lurk within. I’ve been around enough crocodiles to know, once snagged, your next prayer shouldn’t be for continued life, but rather, a quick death. Fortunately, when it comes to death, I am prepared, thanks to Khalid’s lectures on the Book of the Dead. The book is a guide to the underworld, providing spells, incantations, afterlife-hacks to get through the trials & tribulations of being dead. Early in death is an interview with the jackal-faced Anubis who’ll pickle your innards before weighing your soul on a scale against an ostrich feather. This feather, ma’at, represents cosmic balance. If your soul is too heavy, if you are not righteous, your spirit will be snapped-up by Anubis’s unladylike accomplice, Amut. This demoness is one gluttonous bitch: Amut’s known as the eater of hearts, devourer of the dead, swallower of the damned. Amut has the forequarters of a lion, hindquarters of a hippo and the mouth of a crocodile. I haven’t read which animal’s digestive tract is incorporated in her consumption of wickedness. Hyena maybe. It’s hard not to think of Amut in times such as these, with all the territorial beasties afoot. Lion. Hippo. Croc. Amut is not represented by all the snappy creatures, but certainly the biggest toothed. Chuck watches my back and then I stand guard as he hikes up his skirts for a squirt. 

Back at the felucca, Shazly & Hamid have begun preparing dinner while Francis has found the local rotgut gin to mix with pomegranate juice. The South African brothers, Romulus & Remus, have wandered into the interior. The land here consists of agricultural paddies. Legumes & okra. There are a couple of Nubian boys on a donkey wandering the fields. The brothers hailed the boys and have wandered over, across the soggy earth, careful not to step on any cobras. 

The sun has dropped. Kingfishers have completed their day’s hunt. The sky is now the realm of the darting swallows. A full moon is rising. The smell of Berber-spiced chicken has me ravenous and I drink my first gin & tonic too quickly. It layers on a deeper serenity. 

As Hamid cooks, Shazly teaches Chuck a few sailor knots. The Aussie is contemplating a new career as a felucca captain. Why would he relocate halfway around the world to learn a new profession? Why turn away from his family and a career in wrestling? For a woman. Duwana. A school teacher we met in a Nubian village. 

Through Khalid’s translation to Arabic, Chuck suggests he may ask Shazly for his blessing to propose marriage to Duwana. Shazly laughs; he begins clapping, dancing, hugging Chuck. Shazly is a village elder, an uncle to Duwana in tradition only, but he is happy to open his community to Chuck. And Chuck, in his robes, already resembles a Nubian sailor. At least he resembles a Nubian when you look south of his neck tattoos.

After Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt in 1799, Khalid says to Chuck, there were many French soldiers who wish to stay in Egypt and marry their Egyptian mistress. Muslim clerics make a decision: French may stay if they convert to Islam. For the French soldiers, they do not think so difficult. Until…, Khalid says with a raised index finger. Until the French, who were uncut Catholics, they learn for them to covert they must be circumcised. And so ended many love affairs between French soldiers and their beautiful Egyptian women. 

Righto!, Chuck says, good story, Khalid! But go easy, turbo. Yeah nah, mate, I’ve already sussed it out. Have a gander at these blokes: Shazly and Hamid. I am not going to have to convert to Islam, am I? Nah yeah, I am going to have to convert to Rastafarian. Nubian sailors pray to Bob Marley as their prophet. I’m already in good company, Khalid! No dramas. 

The beauty central to this potential Australian migration is Duwana. I was the first to meet her the night we visited Shazly’s village. Though she spoke very little, she was very expressive. Expressive despite her traditional dress only exposing her face & hands. Duwana’s eyes are steady and intense. Her smile generous. Come here often?, I asked as I tore into the bread offered to me. Duwana responded with a slow blink. So, I said with another attempt, what’s ah… what’s a lady like you doing on the west bank of the Nile on a night like this? Duwana’s lips parted and she said, welcome to Nubia. Her words were perhaps the only English she knew. She & I didn’t have long together. I was pulled by the village children into the yard where I demonstrated feats of strength by flinging their little Nubian bodies in the air. They kept coming after me and I kept grabbing their little wrists, little ankles, picking them up to spin around and launch child after child into the night sky. Each kid’d land in a poof of dust, laugh and then charge again. 

After tossing a half-ton of Nubian, forty pounds at a time, my back began seizing-up. These old bones… I turned my gaze towards the school to find Duwana in a fit of giggles. It was Chuck Morris who managed to bridge the language barrier to tickle her fancy. In the night, Duwana’s dark skin gave no sign of blushing, but I had the impression she absolutely was blushing. And Chuck was smitten. 

Back onboard the Ganjaman, the mosquito nets are lowered before we feast within the belly of the felucca. Cold bottles of Egyptian beer are passed around, filling our cups. Once the food is served, we gulp the beer remaining in our cups to refill them with Egyptian red wine. Remus describes his work designing AI to write modern histories in Shakespearean English. Imagine, he says, King Lear but Trump. Francis says, hard pass. Chuck tells the story of an uncle who was lost to the Outback. The Min Min lights, he says, they hypnotize you and lure you into bush. Like a river nymph, I say. Does the Nile have mermaid legends?, I ask Khalid. No, not here, Khalid says. In the delta, yes. In Alexandria, yes. Remus says, I’d take a mermaid if I could get it. And here I thought, says Romulus, it was only your desperation which reeked. 

Egypt is a literal desert, Remus states the obvious. There are no available women in Upper Egypt. If only we could catch-up to Lucy. She’d be an oasis. Did you notice in Aswan?, Remus says to us, the majority of westerners are white guys who watch too much UFO clips on YouTube. Present company inclusive. There are very few women tourists in Egypt. Here…, he says, taking out his phone. He shows his Tinder account. There are fewer women the farther south you go towards the Sudan. The only prospects are in Cairo or further north in Lower Egypt. Which is where the mermaids already are, I say. Right!, Remus says. At least in Cairo, it is easy to meet Israeli women coming in for a weekend of debauchery. But out here… Fucking deserted. 

Quite the zenith of civilization, Romulus says to mock his little brother, satellites providing Remus’ phone access to women for him to disappoint with his sexual prowess. Zenith?, Francis asks, or nadir?

The feast is finished and we climb to the roof of the felucca. Shazly & Hamid have cleaned the dishes and are enjoying hashish off the bow. The smoke tickles my nose. Lebanese hash, says Romulus, it is spicier than the Moroccan methods of extracting the resin. He shrugs and says, when your work takes you to Amsterdam, you learn these things. 

Once the bottles of wine are finished, we drink the last of the cold beer. Once the beer runs out, we’re left with Francis’ Egyptian rotgut and whatever Khalid can uncover to mix with gin. On the roof, we’re playing the music of a Tuareg rock band from the Sahara: Tinariwen. Shazly has joined us; the seven of us are dancing (stomping & clapping) in the moonlight. A migration of luxury cruise ships begins: nearly empty vessels leaving the ports of Aswan for a night journey north to Luxor. The tourism industry in Egypt never fully recovered from the Arab Spring, let alone the pandemic. As each giant ship passes our meager felucca, we cry out, Lucy!, are you onboard? Lucy!, jump and swim to us! Twenty ships pass, perhaps more, one after another, and we dance for each, calling out for our beloved Lucy. But the decks of these ships are sparse. There is no response from Lucy. 

As our energies diminish, enthusiasm over the passing ghost ships is lessened. Chuck Morris returns from visiting the sailors below, asking, where my Yank mates at? He & Khalid have been speaking with Shazly; there is a concern Duwana’s family will be difficult to convince to choose an Aussie wanker over the goat merchant Duwana has already been promised to. It isn’t a question of money, Chuck says, but tradition. Yeah nah, I have tradition in heaps, right? A proper larrikin am I. But no Nubian tradition. I’m fucked, fellas… I mean…, Chuck says while looking at Francis, if I was a real bastard, I’d ask me American mates to make this problem go away. Fortunately…, Chuck says, at least fortunately for this goat bloke, I’d never think of it. I am a solid bloke. Blood oath. I’m righteous. Croc-faced Amut has no need sniff of me. Some mad cunt might be tempted to ask his mates for a helping hand. But not me, no. Better stuff am I. 

Francis is giggling. He’s been leaning-in a little too close to Shazly & Hamid’s hash smoke; his eyes are glazed and the laughter is constant. He says, just because I am Italian-American doesn’t mean I am Tony Soprano. I can’t just take a guy out. 

Yeah, nah, mate!, wouldn’t dream of it!, Frank, Chuck says. I’d never ask youse Yanks to feed the goat bloke to the crocs. Maybe put bacon grease in his beard first. That would be most effective, I’d think. I’d never ask youse blokes to do that for me. I don’t want that on my conscious. I don’t want a heavy heart when meeting Anubis. 

Aren’t you…?, I ask Chuck, a villain in the wrestling ring? Why don’t you eliminate your own rival?

Nah yeah, mate, Chuck says, I am a heel with a heart of gold. I’ve been righteous this long. I am not going to fuck-up now; be one of the damned to be swallowed-up by Amut. But…, Francis interrupts Chuck with a giggle, you don’t mind if we are amongst the damned? Yeah nah, mate, Chuck says, youse are Yanks though, yeah? Youse hearts are already tainted, right? I mean, youse nuked Japan, killed JFK, killed MLK, RFK, Marilyn and probably Princess Di too! A special table in hell already RSVP’d for youse, yeah? What’s a little more murderation for youse lot? Not that I would ever ask!, Chuck says with a calming palm raised to clarify his position. 

You are not wrong, Francis says. But when it comes to assassinations,  I’ll defer to Vic. He dresses like he’s responsible for a few banana republic coups. 

Lucy!, Remus yells at an oncoming brightly lit cruise. Other than the rumble of the ship, his voice is the only sound piercing the night. Lucy!, are you there?

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Take the night train to Luxor with Lucy & her degenerates.