City of Peace, Bay of Troubles
OF COURSE, LIFE doesn’t work like that—‘work’ being the operative word. We both had lives to return to, our real lives. Being in Paris, painted with the romance of the city, it was a perfect, rose-tinted bubble, but it couldn’t last. Less than forty hours after Jack had arrived, he had to fly back to San Diego, and I flew in the opposite direction, home to Cairo.
The heat seemed even more oppressive after the cool, crisp air of Paris in the fall. The changing leaves in the City of Lights had suited our increasingly somber mood. I wondered if we’d ever visit there in the springtime. I wondered how Jack and I could ever have a real, lasting relationship.
Something would have to give.
But for now, at least, I was back at work.
My next assignment was in Sharm El Sheikh. A city on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, it had been one of the jewels in Egypt’s thriving tourist trade.
With glittering white buildings, soft breezes and a perfect climate, Sharm sat prettily on the Red Sea, a favorite place for beach vacations and those who enjoyed snorkeling, scuba diving and any variety of watersports. The sea sparkled, sunlight glinting on the water, a picture-postcard turquoise lapping up to pale, gleaming sand.
Millions of visitors from all over the world arrived every year, boosting the tourist industry profits to record heights.
Until Flight 9268 exploded midair on October 31st 2015, with the loss of 224 lives. Crash investigators eventually agreed with the clamoring and bereft relatives of the many dead that an improvised bomb aboard the aircraft was responsible for the disaster. ISIS, known locally as Daesh, were proud to accept responsibility.
All across the world, flights to this popular resort were canceled and the grand hotels with their beautiful beaches stood empty.
Thousands of local people lost their livelihoods, and to date, more than eighty hotels had closed.
A few intrepid tourists were beginning to drift back, many from Saudi and Kuwait, but the Europeans were far fewer in number. Immediately after the terror attack, a worldwide travel ban had been sanctioned by nervous governments. Most countries had now lifted that, although the British were still banning flights to Sharm.
I had been invited to stay at the magnificent Four Seasons, a large building of white stucco and elegant Moorish arches, its tall palms providing shelter across the broad, baking sands. But the four swimming pools were almost devoid of visitors, and everywhere small discreet signs revealed the guilty truth:
20% off diving activities
30% off boat trips
40% off watersport activities.
Their desperation for business was palpable, hungry for every tourist dollar that came their way.
I dined alone that night, and even though the food was exceptional, a painful hollow in my chest made my stomach ache, and I missed Jack painfully. Too many waiters hovering around me, urgently wishing me a pleasant and relaxing visit, left me irritated and depressed. Once word went out that I was a journalist, they begged me to write a story about how beautiful, how special, how cheap it was to vacation here. Which was all true. But with armed guards patrolling the resort, it was hard to say that I felt truly safe. What I would have given for Jack’s calm, reassuring presence beside me. But he was many thousands of miles away, and I felt more alone than ever.
My assignment was to interview the Egyptian minister for tourism, a round-faced man in a Western business suit with a ready smile.
His eyes tightened at the mention of the continuing British ban.
“More than 1.5 million British visitors came to Egypt in 2010,” he said, visibly aggravated. “This year we expect it will be fewer than 300,000 persons.”
He insisted that security had been increased, private firms hired to protect the intrepid who dared to travel; but still visitors didn’t return in their previous numbers. And I could see the effects of that loss of income all around.
Everyone was so desperate to tell me what a wonderful place Sharm was, how friendly, how perfect for a relaxing vacation.
But I couldn’t help noticing that the few vacationers I met were loath to move beyond the secure and gated resort. In fact, to move beyond the city limits into Sinai required a separate visa.
The few British I did meet were all repeat visitors and had been coming to Sharm for years. They were aware that they traveled without support of their Foreign Office and hadn’t been able to purchase travel insurance.
“I feel more secure in Sharm than I do in London,” said Ken, a fifty-two year old taxi driver. “How many terrorist attacks have there been in Paris? No one’s stopping me from going to France.”
I admitted that I’d recently been there, and Ken fixed his eyes on me.
“Is anywhere really safe?” he asked.
He introduced me to his friend Emad who owned a café in the resort that could seat a hundred people, where tourists used to come to sip ice-cold fruit juice or puff on a shisha pipe. Only two tables were taken.
“Everything has slowed down. We have no income. Prices have gone up and our currency has been devalued twice.”
He shook his head and went on to tell me that the family business of producing rice, honey and sugar had foundered. There was no hard currency to purchase the raw materials they needed.
Everywhere, ordinary people were struggling. And they were angry: angry at the government, angry at Daesh, angry at the tourists for not coming back. I wondered, not for the first time, whether that resentment and lack of money allowed ISIS to fill the vacuum of desperation and need.
The visit left me even more depressed and also doubtful of the value of my work. The slow, dragging disease of hatred seemed to seep into everything. And yet, it was truly a beautiful resort with a wonderful climate, and the people I’d met were genuine, warm and friendly. In the months that I’d been here, I’d grown to love Egypt.
Love: that little word with the largest meaning.
I thought once again that most people just want to live a good life, a full life, with their family safe around them. Was it so much to ask?
And what about me? What about my life? Was my career worth keeping me away from Jackson, the man I loved?
I thought back to the conversation we’d had just before leaving Paris.
We’d spent the evening walking along the Champs Elysée and drinking in a tiny bar where tourists seldom ventured. Then, slightly less than sober, I’d taken Jack to bed and showed him how an American in Paris behaved in the City of Love.
And then Jackson had flipped me onto my back with ease and had come with pounding, staccato thrusts that reminded me of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. Although at the time, I wasn’t able to think so clearly or make the comparison: that was much later.
Then, when I was weak and vulnerable, he’d ambushed me.
“Do you want kids, Maggie?”
His question caught me off balance and a little fearful. We’d never discussed this before, and his question seemed to have come out of the blue. But I also thought that it was perhaps something he’d been mulling over, and surprised himself by blurting it out a second after pouring himself into me and rolling from my overheated body.
“I’ve never thought much about it,” I answered cautiously, still out of breath.
Before I’d met Jack that would have been an honest answer, but being with him had made me think all sorts of things I’d never considered before.
He seemed disappointed and looked away, sitting up and taking a long drink of water from the glass sweating on the bedside table.
“I’d always imagined having a large family,” he said mildly, before swinging his penetrating gaze my way. “Life is short, Maggie.”
I hadn’t known what to say, so I gave him a weak smile and made some dumb comment about his kids having great genes.
He smiled back, but it didn’t reach his eyes. We both knew that I’d deliberately chosen my words when I said ‘your kids’.
He hadn’t mentioned it again, but he wasn’t the kind of man to sulk either, and he didn’t show through word or deed that he was disappointed in me. Maybe I was disappointed in myself.
I was rarely an impulsive person. I was a thinker and a planner. That’s not to say that I was too rigid to follow a story when it went in an unexpected direction. And Jack had very neatly hacked a new path to my heart, flailing aside all my careful plans. His words stayed with me, and I mulled them over, letting them sink inside.
As I sat watching the enormous globe of sun setting behind the glowing waters of Sharm El Sheikh, I turned his words over and over, like pebbles on a beach, searching for the perfect one, the most beautiful. They terrified me and charmed me, the future becoming misty. Was that what he truly wanted? A large family? Did he imagine a house full of children, a minivan, and a dog? Did he imagine camping trips and backyard barbecues?
All things I’d never had and never wanted.
I had a one-bedroom apartment in Greenwich Village and didn’t even own a car. I’d never had pets, not even a goldfish, and plants died regularly with lack of watering, by reason of forgetfulness or absence.
What he wanted, what I thought he was offering, was so different from the direction I’d assumed my life would go.
After he’d mentioned children, I’d avoided having ‘the talk’ while we were in Paris, and it was entirely due to my own cowardice. It was all so wonderful, so perfect, so utterly romantic, that tackling the thorny question of our future—and possibly uncovering new holes in our relationship—wasn’t something I wanted to do, risking spoiling our brief time together.
But I knew that conversation was coming. I wasn’t a naïve 18 year old. I’d seen too much, experienced too many things, and I did want to get to the bottom of what Jack really wanted, what I wanted. But maybe because I’d seen so much of misery, pain and poverty, I was happy to spend our time in Paris in an unassailable bubble of love and hope.
Returning to Cairo alone, I’d sought distraction in my work, immersion in the problems of the Egyptian people and the wider Arab world.
But I couldn’t deny that my heart was no longer my own, instead hovering in the care of a blue-eyed US Marine, a man who challenged and tested me, who loved me.
I was in one of the most beautiful places I’d ever visited, an all-expenses paid trip to a five-star hotel, doing my dream job and hoping to make a difference as I did it. But I was sitting alone, and while that had never felt lonely before, it did now.
And when I thought about it, didn’t that tell me everything I needed to know?
Maybe I could be a mother and still work as well. Others did it. My good friend Lee was a successful journalist despite having three children and a husband who was a veteran of the Marines. Sebastian had settled down and now ran his own thriving business. So why couldn’t Jack?
The difference was that Lee had always wanted kids.
Part of me insisted on burying my head in the sand. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, I told myself.
Because more than anything, I wanted Jack.
More than anything.
I sighed.
My editor would be so disappointed. And part of me was disappointed in myself, too. After all, I’d achieved everything I’d been working for my entire adult life, only to find that the achievement was not as fulfilling as it should be, as I wanted it to be.
It wasn’t an easy decision, because my head was fighting my heart, but in the end it was an unequal battle.
I’d give Dean Baquet a month to find my replacement. Then I was going home.
To Jack.
I arrived back at my apartment in Cairo hot, tired and longing for air conditioning that worked. While I’d come to love Egypt, there were a lot of things that I missed about home—reliable utilities being one of them.
I dropped my bags in the corner and pulled a bottle of water out of the fridge, relieved that the ancient device was still working as it grumbled and complained, coughing at irregular intervals.
My phone was dead, the ‘no service’ message tucked into the upper corner of the screen, which meant the local transmitter was probably being repaired again, but at least my Wifi was working, thank God.
And when I checked my emails, there was a message from my old friend and colleague Marc Lebuin. I’d only had one short message from him since our dramatic exodus from Zataari, and it would be great to catch up with him.
He was in Cairo for a couple of days and he’d reserved us a table at Abou El Sid, an upscale restaurant that catered to locals as well as visitors seeking an authentic, if refined, experience.
I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of showering and going right back out into the heat again, but talking everything over would be useful. And Marc was a good friend.
When I arrived, late and rather sweaty, Marc leapt to his feet, hugging me happily and kissing me three times in the European style.
“Ma belle, MJ! How are you?”
He looked elegantly casual in light linen slacks and a long-sleeved white shirt. When I’d last seen him in Jordan, he’d been covered in dirt and lined with grief after our horrendous experiences and close call with the Grim Reaper.
Now he looked like he’d stepped out of a GQ fashion shoot.
Sometimes the contradictions of our lives were hard to reconcile.
We caught up on each other’s news, chatted about old friends, and dined on Kafta and Shrimp Rajin.
I didn’t have room for dessert, but Marc ordered Fetir with mixed nuts and honey.
And then I told him about my thoughts, my plans for the future.
Marc’s eyebrows went through his carefully arranged hairline.
“MJ, what you’re talking about is career suicide!”
I bristled at his disapproval.
“Maybe I just want to live my own life instead of writing about other people’s.”
He shook his head.
“It won’t be your own life: if you follow him to San Diego, it will be his career, his friends, his life, not yours.”
His words blasted holes through my newborn certainties.
Sensing my hesitation, Marc sniffed blood and went for the kill.
“Mon Dieu! Have you worked so hard all of these years to build up your portfolio, earn the respect of your colleagues, your editor and your readers, to go bury yourself in a military life with a man you’ve just met? Has he offered to give it all up? Has he offered to stop being a Marine?”
“No, but . . .”
“Then why should you?”
“I don’t have to give it all up. I can write just as well from the west coast.”
“Can you? And what about Cairo? This is your dream job? This is what you’ve been working for! Ever since I first met you, this was your goal!”
I gave him a small smile.
“It’s not my dream anymore.”
He tossed his napkin onto the table in disgust.
“Bah! Love makes fools of us all. I suppose it is God’s way of leveling the playing field.”
Which, I think, was Marc’s acquiescence.
“At least tell me that your Marine is good-looking,” he grumbled.
“Very.”
And I showed him a picture on my phone.
Marc’s eyebrows shot up again, and this time they stayed there.
“Quel beau gosse! Does he have a friend?”
“Yes, but not your type.”
“I disagree. All men who look like that are my type.”
“I’ll tell him you said so.”
“Well then, I approve. Go be Mrs. Marine and live that life, but don’t forget your old friend Marc when you invite all those beautiful military men to your beach parties.”
When I arrived back at my apartment, there was no electricity, no wifi and still no phone signal. Sighing, I lay naked on top of the sheets, sweltering in the sultry heat as I listened to the voices on the busy street outside, calling in Arabic, French, and some African languages that I couldn’t even guess at.
The power came on at 3AM, forcing me to get up to turn off the lights. And it was only then that I saw a text message from Jackson on my phone.
Hey, Maggie,
I hope the Sharm trip was good. Did you get any snorkeling in? Can’t work all the time, sugar.
I really wanted to hear your sexy voice, but your phone is off, so I’m doing it the old fashioned way and texting. Why do they make keyboard screens so damn small on these phones?
Call me any time. I got my phone right next to me just so I can hear your sweet voice.
Gotta run.
Love you, Jack x
I smiled, stupidly happy to read his words.
But just as I was calculating the time in California and I’d picked up my cellphone to call him, a bulletin from Reuters news agency popped into my inbox.
GUNMAN ATTACKS U.S. MILITARY BASE.
THREE MARINES KILLED.
Horrified, my heart hammering, adrenaline shaking my body, I dialed Jack’s number.
The phone rang and rang and rang. Then I got his voicemail.
I called back, nerves tightening my throat as the phone continued to ring. This time I left a message.
“Jack, it’s Maggie. I need to know you’re okay. I just heard about the attack on a US military base. I need to know you’re safe. Please call me as soon as you can. I love you.”
But he didn’t call back and I didn’t hear from him.
I turned to my computer, jittery as I scanned the news agencies for updates.
All I could learn was that a lone gunman was killed after he’d gunned down three Marines at a military base in California. Oh my God, in California!
But which Base?
And which Marines?
I searched the growing number of reports for an hour as I tried to find out more details. I learned that the attack had happened at Camp Pendleton, Jack’s base . . . and he still wasn’t answering his calls.
Hands shaking, I bought a ticket to San Diego.