War made Cairo something other than it had been. So many Europeans left the country, and those of us who remained had a new kind of freedom. Oddly, the streets seemed safer to me. I walked on my own, as I hadn’t before in Cairo, for hours, out of the wide, palm-lined streets of Garden City into the tighter-wound, dusty roads that circled Ismailia Square. I would pass Shepheard’s Hotel, where Europeans stood on the balcony, umbrellas and parasols shielding their heads from the sun. I didn’t join them but walked among the Egyptians, all men and mostly touts who called up to the Europeans, offering them transport, assistance, even instant entertainment, prodding at small monkeys in red caps and little jackets until they jigged on demand.
Sometimes, I saw Egyptian women when I went into dres
