A Foreign Country. Чарльз Камминг

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      Philippe and Jeannine Malot, of 79 Rue Pelleport, Paris, had been planning their dream holiday in Egypt for more than a year. Philippe, who had recently retired, had set aside a budget of three thousand euros and found an airline that was prepared to fly them to Cairo (albeit at six o’clock in the morning) for less than the price of a return taxi to Charles de Gaulle airport. They had researched the best hotels in Cairo and Luxor on the Internet and secured an over-60s discount at a luxury resort in Sharm-el-Sheikh, where they planned to relax for the final five days of their journey.

      The Malots had arrived in Cairo on a humid summer afternoon, making love almost as soon as they had closed the door of their hotel room. Jeannine had then set about unpacking while Philippe remained in bed reading Naguib Mahfouz’s Akhénaton le Renégat, a novel that he was not altogether enjoying. After a short walk around the local neighbourhood, they had eaten dinner in one of the hotel’s three restaurants and fallen asleep before midnight to the muffled sounds of Cairene traffic.

      Three enjoyable, if exhausting days, followed. Though she had developed a minor stomach complaint, Jeannine managed five hours of wide-eyed browsing in the Egyptian Museum, where she declared herself ‘awestruck’ by the treasures of Tutankhamun. On the second morning of their trip, the Malots had set off by taxi shortly after breakfast and were astonished – as all first-time visitors were – to find the Pyramids looming into view no more than a few hundred metres from a nondescript residential suburb at the edge of the city. Hounded by trinket-sellers and under-qualified guides, they had completed a full circuit of the area within two hours and asked a shaven-headed German tourist to take their photograph in front of the Sphinx. Jeannine was keen to enter the Pyramid at Cheops, but went alone, because Philippe suffered from a mild claustrophobia and had been warned by a colleague at work that the interior was both cramped and stiflingly hot. In a mood of jubilation at having finally witnessed a phenomenon that had enthralled her since childhood, Jeannine paid an Egyptian man the equivalent of fifteen euros for a brief ride on a camel. It had moaned throughout and smelled strongly of diesel. She had then accidentally deleted the picture of her husband astride the beast while attempting to organize the pictures on their digital camera at lunch the following day.

      On the recommendation of an article in a French style magazine, they had travelled to Luxor by overnight train and booked a room at the Winter Palace, albeit in the Pavilion, a four-star annexed development added to the original colonial hotel. An enterprising tourism company offered donkey rides to the Valley of the Kings that left Luxor at five o’clock in the morning. The Malots had duly signed up, witnessing a dramatic sunrise over the Temple at Hatshepsut just after six a.m. They had then spent what they later agreed had been the best day of their holiday travelling out to the temples at Dendara and Abydos. On their final afternoon in Luxor, Philippe and Jeannine had taken a taxi to the Temple at Karnak and stayed until the evening to witness the famous Sound and Light show. Philippe had fallen asleep within ten minutes.

      By Tuesday they were in Sharm-el-Sheikh, on the Sinai Peninsula. Their hotel boasted three swimming pools, a hairdressing salon, two cocktail bars, nine tennis СКАЧАТЬ