When business was done, we’d dive into the crowds and commune with our human brethren in the medina. The moment we stepped out of our air-conditioned offices, we were off in search of neighbourhoods so poor they could only exist in the imagination of the destitute south, places that endure only by some miracle, breathe only by the grace of God. We would look for the most tortuous streets, the narrowest alleys, the riotous confusion, the flood of colours, sounds and smells, the bewildered smiles of the destitute – Al-Masakeen – the relentless patter of the merchants in the souk, whose age-old spiel can still dupe an international conman, the lyrical flights of the beggars, the teeming packs of children, the Bounayes, the walads, the affected indignation of the thieves, the sirakinn, the bleating of fat chaouchs pleading poverty, like tics feeding on the misery of others, the cursing of the carters, the pleas of the beggars, the toulabs, so piteous that no one ever hears them, the dreamlike pronouncement of the scribes, their ears are so full of secrets they would make a saint blush, but more than this, watchful as hawks, we were looking for a glimpse of an Egyptian woman wearing a close-fitting tunic, a headscarf framed by coloured pompoms. If their husbands were nearby, searching for them, it was all for nothing, they have no control over their wives for all their furious glares, the whistle of their canes, their wives have lots of tricks to give these latent murderers the slip. Then, finally, we’d find her, she’d look as though she’d stepped from some furtive dream, a devil in the flesh, hips swaying, arms outspread, full breasts, a mischievous smile and a pair of bewitching eyes. This was what we had been looking for: the living gaze of the Sphinx that sees beyond the Beyond. It is as mysterious, as enchanting as everyday immortality, her eyes flash like lightning, more terrifying than the curse of a pharaoh, were he Tutankhamen himself. What we saw in these woman was the reincarnation of Cleopatra, a Malikah worthy of the Caliphs, a houri beloved of Allah, a princess from the Thousand and One Nights, a siren conjured from the troubling world of the djinn. We were all widely travelled, we had all seen the world, but we all agreed that there was nothing on earth more thrilling than the dazzling, kohl-rimmed eyes of an Egyptian woman, glittering with the most ancient mystery in all the world.

Having made our pilgrimage, and with a little ebony scarab or a terracotta sarcophagus for Ophélie packed into my suitcase, we would go our separate ways to different countries, petrified at the prospect of having to face the ruthless realities of the modern world.