We met Jeff and Manny at the weapons shop next door, where Jeff was still arguing over the price of an intricately carved cane that concealed a sword. When we left with them, the merchant ran after us, waving the cane in a theatrical way, and agreed to meet Jeff’s last price. Jeff paid him, but later wished he had cut the price again, to see what would happen. Manny said he thought it might be smart to do your experiments in bargaining etiquette at some place other than a weapons shop.
We didn’t buy much else. We had been warned not to change too much money into dirhams, since you couldn’t take them out of the country and it was illegal to change them into foreign currency.
It was more relaxed than Tangier’s Casbah, and a little cleaner, but there were several times I was glad to have two meters of husky armed policeman as an escort. Violet and I got accustomed to the “Maghrib handshake.” In a crowd, men were constantly gliding their hands across your buttocks, to make sure you had two. Violet was amused by it, but I thought it was a little disgusting. Once a man sidled up behind and touched me with something other than a hand; he got an elbow in the ribs for his effort. He growled something in Arabic but Jeff stared him down.
Most of the afternoon was delightful, though. We went past the shops into the part of town where people lived and worked, normally out of the sight of tourists. I was particularly fascinated by a man who was running a wood lathe by foot power rolling the soles of his feet rapidly over a wooden axle (the feet had nearly a centimeter of translucent callus), the power transmitted by squeaking pulleys to the thing he was working on, a cane like Jeff’s. He worked close to the wood, thick spectacles protecting his eyes. He never noticed us watching him.
There were tanners and dyers and weavers and copper-smiths and blacksmiths, most of them working in ways that hadn’t changed for centuries. We stumbled on to one electronics/cybernetics dealer, which was jarring.
… had a long sleepy bath and then at 10:30, as prearranged, tiptoed down the hall and traded places with Manny.
… but it was so sweet just to be with him. I’m afraid I’ve fallen in love again. My only consistent talent.
(28 January-3 February: Fez/Meknes, Casablanca, Kisangani, Dar es Salaam)
4 February. The Alexandrian Dominion comes as a cold shock after the friendliness and modernity of Black Africa.
At the Cairo customs station, all women were required to buy a chador, a shapeless robe that covers you from head to foot. Only your eyes are allowed to show. We would have to wear that whenever we were anyplace a man might see us.
On our way to the hotel, we passed a large public square, fountains and beautifully tended flowers beds and topiary. On the fence around the square were impaled rotting heads and hands from recently punished criminals. For some reason they didn’t look real.
Over the hotel desk there was a sign in several languages. I’ll copy it down:THIS IS A HOTEL NOT A HOUSE OF PROSTITUTION. ADULTERERS WILL BE PUNISHED ACCORDING TO ISLAMIC LAW: IF UNMARRIED, ONE HUNDRED LASHES. IF MARRIED, DEATH BY STONING. FOREIGNERS BE ADVISED. THIS LAW IS STRICTLY ENFORCED.
Six days of this. Oh, well, I always wanted to see the Pyramids….
(5 February-9 February: Alexandria, Mecca, Baghdad, Damascus, Ankara, Jerusalem)
10 February. So good to be rid of that damned chador, and to see women’s faces and bodies again. Three cheers for Krishna.
Delhi is the most crowded place I’ve ever seen, but the people are calm and good-natured….
… bed was squeaky so we moved onto the floor. The rug seemed soft to me but it took the skin off Jeff’s knees, large price to pay for not disturbing the sleep of our neighbors. So I got to be on top for the second round, doubly nice after a week of being debased for being a woman.
11 February. We spent the afternoon in Khajuaho, at the famous Devi Jagadambi Temple, mostly. Thousands of delightful erotic sculptures, showing every possible way, and some impossible ones (Hindi demigods evidently could bend in ways that humans can’t; they also had pretty impressive sex organs). Jeff said he was taking mental notes about the positions that didn’t involve kneeling.
Several Muslim women were waiting outside the temple, while their husbands, or husband, enjoyed the sculptures. At least they can show their faces in Bharat, though they do have to wear a modified chador. Most of the men and women wear European-style clothes.
At a bookstall by the temple Jeff bought a copy of the Kama Sutra, illustrated with pictures of the temple figures.
I decided I’d better get some sleep on the way back to the hotel…
13 February. … but our final impression of Bharat was marred by the incredible squalor of Calcutta. Our guide said it had never been worse, with some twenty million refugees fleeing starvation in Bangladesh….
14 February. Vietnam is America’s only real ally in Southeast Asia, and wherever we go, we’re treated with anxious friendliness. Not surprising, since they’re surrounded by SSU countries, and only American military might keeps them from being overrun—especially by China, who’s been trying to absorb them for thousands of years.
(I decided not to take a side trip into the SSU, since the transportation is so expensive it would eat up half my remaining travel money. Violet went into Kampuchea to see Angkor Wat, and will join up with us in Ho Chi Minh City.)
Hanoi is a tidy, earnest place….
(15-17 February: Hue, Pleiku, Banmethuot)
18 February. The Kampucheans were not very friendly to Violet. She was even spat upon. It wasn’t simply racism, she found out. Many people believe that the independence of Nevada (and Ketchikan) is a hoax, and that visitors are spies….
(19-22 February: Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima)
23 February. Two days’ rest before we go on to the last leg of our travels. Nothing to do on Guam but lie on the beach, swim in the warm water, enjoy each other.
And some time to try to straighten out my feelings about Jeff. I love him, all right, but it’s not the kind of love I have for Daniel. In a way it’s a more juvenile thing, like it was with Charlie, more hormones than brain cells. We both know it can’t be permanent, and that makes it sort of romantic and wistful.
It brings me up short to realize that I’ve known him longer than I’ve known Daniel, in terms of together-time, and I probably know him better than I know Daniel.
I’ve never said anything about love to him. Who am I protecting?
(25 February-6 March: Manila, Papua, Darwin, Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, Anchorage, Fairbanks, Ketchikan, Guadalajara, Mexico D.F., Acapulco)
36. Kaleidoscope
After I got settled into the dorm, I went over to the bound-journals stacks in the library. My cigarette-paper diary was still there, but nothing else, no message from Benny.
Should have memorized the position of the papers inside the magazine. It seemed to me that they had been moved, but I couldn’t be sure. (If somebody had read them, though, it was probably Benny. Find out in a couple of weeks.)