Beautiful in Cairo

Image by Blaine Harrington III

“Pretty” has never been a big word in my vocabulary.  Not that I’m an eyesore or anything, just that I’m not and never will be beautiful. So Egypt came as a complete surprise.

The year was 1983. I lived in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capitol city, with banker husband Ron and two children, Jessica and Barnaby, ages five and two respectively. Jessica attended kindergarten at the Jakarta International School, and one of her very best friends was a little blonde with thick glasses and serious attitude named Laura.

Laura’s parents, Jackie and Jerry, worked for USAID. When their time in Jakarta was up, the family moved to Cairo, and in due course Laura invited Jessica for a visit. I was delighted; my husband Ron not quite so much. My trip to Cairo meant that he was on deck with our two-year-old son for the very first time.

“On deck” in Jakarta doesn’t carry the same meaning it might in the USA—we had a whole houseful of Indonesian helpers living with us—but still, Ron was in charge, and I don’t think he was thrilled.

Did I care? I’m a little ashamed to admit it, but no. I didn’t. I waved goodbye with a broad grin on my face and never looked back.

Getting to Egypt wasn’t easy. There was most likely no direct flight from Jakarta to Cairo in those days, although I have no memory of changing planes or the penultimate leg of our trip at all. The ultimate leg I remember all too well.

Jessica and I checked that the flight was on time, went through security, and joined the people waiting to board the plane. We waited, without even a bottle of water, for five hours. A hijacking rumor, unspecified, was causing the delay. If they’d held off sending people through security until the threat was resolved, we’d at least have been able to buy a sandwich and a drink.

Ultimately, exhausted and hungry, we arrived in Cairo and straggled into the baggage area just in time to see a large bearded man trying to walk off with my suitcase.

Luckily, I’m a New Yorker. The man never stood a chance.

Egypt was a shock. Jakarta is one of the most crowded cities in the world, but our house, in a quiet residential neighborhood, saw very little through traffic. When our son was older he played soccer in the street with the local children, and we never had a moment’s worry about his safety.

In Cairo, crossing the street was an adventure, and not in the good sense of the word. I don’t remember modern conveniences like traffic lights or pedestrian crossings.  If they existed, no one paid them any mind. Donkey carts, bicyclists, stray dogs all wove randomly through the traffic, posing no threat to anyone. The problem was cars and their drivers.

Photo Credit Al-Ahram Weekly

I had the clear feeling that Cairo drivers took aim at Western pedestrians in a crazy game of Russian Roulette. If the driver missed, he’d shrug and look for the next potential target, taking Inshallah to a whole other level.

Perhaps I was imagining things, but when I asked Jackie about it she made a face. All she said was “I never take Laura anywhere on foot.”

So. When we weren’t seeing the sights, or taking the girls to ride horses at sunset near the Great Pyramid of Giza, or sitting for what seemed like an eternity in totally gridlocked traffic, we spent a lot of time in the apartment.

Laura’s mother is one of the most beautiful women I have ever known. Curly red hair falling below her shoulders was enough to stop traffic, but had she shaved her head bald, Jackie still would have stood out in any crowd.  If there was ever a woman who didn’t need makeup, Jackie was it, but she loved playing around with eyeliner, eye shadow, and mascara.

I, on the other hand, hardly ever used more than occasional lipstick and once-in-a-blue-moon eye shadow.  I wasn’t clever about applying it and, honestly, I didn’t see the point. Between college and graduate school, when I made a real effort to act and look like normal people, I tried my hand at the kind of eyeliner you paint in a fine line just above your eyelashes. It took a lot of time, and I could never get it thin enough, so I lost interest.

Until Cairo.

Let’s face it, there wasn’t a great deal to do in the apartment except watch the girls play, and squabble, and make up so they could play some more. If we’d been creative, maybe we’d have taught the girls how to apply makeup, but it seemed too much like work.

Instead, Jackie taught me how to use eyeliner, Egyptian style. 

Image copyright beautifullyalive.org

We all know what it looks like: smoky kohl drawn right under the eyes, turning the lower lid line black. You can darken a line on the upper lids, too, joining the corners up for a sloe-eyed look (whatever that means. What’s a sloe, anyway?), but I concentrated on the lower lid, using a thick dark brown eyebrow pencil.

The result looked good, so I practiced.  A lot.

I was totally unprepared for the result.  All of a sudden, I was beautiful.

It could have been my imagination, but men seemed to be looking at me.  At the pyramids, where I waited outside with Laura while Jessica and Jackie took the tour, I was offered a free camel ride! It may sound like much ado, but if you’ve ever been to the pyramids you know that a free ride is not trivial. Camels are expensive!

Wherever we went, men looked at me. After the first day it felt kind of creepy, but I kept on practicing with the eyeliner. 

On our last day in Cairo, as Jackie was driving us to the airport, the unthinkable happened. We were stuck in traffic, as usual, when a man walked up to the car and knocked on the window. I leaned back in my seat so he could get a good look at the car’s beautiful driver.

He shook his head urgently and pointed a finger at me. Not her, he mouthed. You!

Fortunately, Jackie thought it was funny.

Sitting on the plane going home, the Egyptian man next to me seemed to be mesmerized. I finally told him I was Jewish, hoping that would turn him off. It made him more interested than ever.

Definitely creepy. I wondered how Jackie tolerated the attention.

It was a relief to get back to our haunted Jakarta house (see “Sleepless in Jakarta”) and immerse myself in everyday life without the excitement of eyeliner magic. Nothing much had changed during my two weeks away, except that Barnaby, formerly joined to me at the hip, now called his father “Mommy.”