BooksBarbecue
Back Slipping Save as PDF
Chapters (32)
  1. Cover
  2. PART ONE
  3. 1
  4. 2
  5. 3
  6. 4
  7. 5
  8. 6
  9. 7
  10. 8
  11. 9
  12. 10
  13. 11
  14. 12
  15. 13
  16. 14
  17. PART TWO
  18. 1
  19. 2
  20. 3
  21. 4
  22. 5
  23. 6
  24. 7
  25. 8
  26. 9
  27. 10
  28. AFTERWORD
  29. 1
  30. 2
  31. 3
  32. 4

And they had returned, dizzy from their rounds of the hospitals and clinics and police stations and homes of friends and acquaintances, to find the missing man in perfect health: not a scratch on him, and nothing to soothe their anger.

4

Image

WE WALKED ON WATER AND MET A STRANGER

Where the corniche wall ran out, a great tree hooped over to drink from the river. Beyond the tree there was nothing: nothing between us and the water.

We walked by the light of the stars, to our left a scattering of buildings, silent as though abandoned and none more than two stories high. There was the soft howling of dogs in the distance, and the rustle of small things, some living, from the ground. All of a sudden, Bahr halted and pulled me to one side, right to the lip of the riverbank. For a moment it was as if he wanted me to leap into the Nile, but then I saw a flight of stone steps in the starlight, appearing as if from nowhere: narrow, running from the embankment where we stood down to the water’s surface, to where there was no jetty, no boat, no hut, nothing: as though inviting us under.

Without saying a word, Bahr cautiously began his descent and I followed. When he came to the second to last step, just before he reached the water, he sat down. I took the step above him, and we leaned back against the wall. Bahr said, “It was against a wall like this, on steps like these, that I kissed a girl for the first time.”

I listened, waiting for him to go on, but he was done. In that silence it felt as though the stars were humming for us, lullabying, soothing us to sleep.

Out in the heart of the river’s darkness there was a movement, and we sat up, suddenly alert. Then, to our astonishment—or at least, to mine—we saw him: a man coming across the river, walking on water. Bahr got to his feet. “Now,” he said, placing his feet on the final step so the water lapped at his shoes. Then he stooped and slipped them off and, without turning around, told me, “Take off your shoes, Seif.”

My quaking heart.

The man drew closer. He was wearing a robe with the hem held up over his knees and, like Bahr, seemed to be holding shoes or slippers in one hand. He stepped carefully, and I could see that with each step the water just covered the round of his heel.