CHAPTER 26
––––––––
LUCIA:
––––––––
THE NIGHT HAD NOT PASSED swiftly or easily.
When I awoke in my hotel room, the hour was early and still heavy with a blackness without shadows but the scent of masses of flowers clung to the air like a sweet, forlorn, stubborn hope.
Despite the great anticipation engendered by Charley’s remarks about Shelley and Abu Simbel, the anxiety arising from our first evening in Assuan overshadowed any enthusiasm we might have had left for sightseeing activities. In addition, none of us were particularly keen to wake up before dawn to virtual darkness to travel to the Second Cataract where the sacred site was situated but our guide Ussama had persuaded us on the previous day that viewing the sun rise over the temple complex of Abu Simbel—watching the gray of
