The Great Iron Tortoise

(continued)

At the station, the attendant behind the counter scrawls "Seat 17, Car 13. // Plat. 1" at the bottom of my entirely handwritten ticket. "Platform 1," he says. The top reads, "Train 997. 8 PM." I shoulder my bags and head through the perfunctory security check.

I've figured out the Arabic numbering system, but the digits on the sides of the already-arrived train at Platform 1 don't appear to say anything lower than 1,115. I ask a guy in a station attendant's uniform where I should be. He grabs my ticket, frowns, and says, "Platform 4! Hurry! It leave!", and points energetically to the tunnel under the tracks to the other platforms.

I'm skeptical, so I find one of the omni-present soldiers and ask him what's up. He gestures to his superior, who speaks English, and explains what's on my ticket. The three-star (or so his epaulets proclaim him) frowns and says, "Platform 4!"

Puzzling!

I trundle back out to the grungy front lobby and find the gentleman who sold me the tickets. "They said platform 4. What's going on?", I ask hopefully. "Platform 1! But go, it will leave in a moment!", he harrumphs before leaving his desk for the station's inner sanctum. I'm lost.

I head back out to the tracks and appeal to a civilian for help. He grabs my ticket. Frowns. Scratches at the marks. Says, "You need to run. Come." And he grabs my arm, and down we go beneath the tracks, through the tunnel, back up to the air at platform 4. Another train! My Good Samaritan hands me off to one of the passengers. This guy performs the by-now-familiar divination ceremony over my ticket and, clearly non-plussed but self-assured nonetheless, leads me three cars up. "This is your seat," he says, pointing to seat 13.

I check: my ticket still says seat 17. "Really? That's....that's great. Thank you." He nods, I nod, and I drop my bags.

By way of background, I made my trip down to Aswan in a 1st-class compartment. I've never been in the 2nd-class cars before, or even seen inside. It's a different world. Where 1st-class has plush seats and is relatively clean, if cramped, 2nd-class has battered, patched, threadbare seats that clearly that well attached to the car itself. It also has plenty of room and a much more jovial, communal atmosphere. Though I paid for a 1st-class ticket, I'm perfectly happy here.

The other vital piece of background -- a tidbit I didn't learn until I ran into a fellow erstwhile Egyptian traveler while in Istanbul -- is that Westerners are not to be sold 2nd-class tickets, and are in fact required to sit in 1st-class. 2nd-class, I was informed in hushed tones, "is not safe."

So bear this in mind, gentle reader, as the conductor scoots through the car collecting tickets. I show him mine. He squints, obviously confused. The man behind me stands up and talks excitedly, likely making a point about the law and my clear Western provenance. The conductor shushes him and then shrugs, as if to say "Who really gives a shit?" He hands me back my ticket and walks on.

The Egyptian attitude toward security never fails to astound. (There are metal detectors and X-Ray machines at all the entrances to the national monuments and antiquities sites. But there are no monitors for the X-Ray machines, and the metal detectors beep plaintively for each person who walks through. It's a tiny one-note ode to good intentions. Or maybe not: The same traveler who told me about the 2nd-class law claims he saw someone get pulled aside after a metal detector only to offer a 10-pound note and pass without scrutiny. Others claim that, much like marijuana laws in the States, the ubiquitous Egyptian security precautions are mainly excuses to investigate anyone the police couldn't nab under other pretenses.)

So the train pulls out. For the first half hour or so, I sit and chat with the gentleman across the isle from me. His name is Musim, and at age 28 he owns and operates his own ore-extraction business. After some involved talk about Egyptian business and the value of a law degree ("I always keep a lawyer on payroll. They make problems go away"), he asks what I do. "I'm a student," I tell him.

"How much does that cost each year?"

"God. Upwards of $40,000. Sometimes $60K, depending how you count."

His eyes bug out. "So you will be rich after you study? You will make that money in your government job?"

"Lord no."

"So you will be poor?"

"More than likely."

"You do not want to make money?"

"It's not really the point. I'm in this to do good, you know?"

He pauses to consider. Then: "We need more people like you in this country."

We chat, first about Egyptian and global politics, then idly, until sleep overtakes both of us. As night falls over the alleged Train 997, we clatter and rattle our way back to Cairo.