MaxMax lingered in bed, thinking that he had put off responding to Jack’s email for too long. He really ought to tell him whether he was serious about going to Egypt with him. Now he could hear the church bells ringing. He liked their chime, though not quite as much as the muezzin’s call to prayer. In recent weeks, his imagination had been playing tricks on him and the almost constant hissing and swishing in his ears reminded him of the muezzin’s call, making those enervating sounds more tolerable.
Summer had not officially started, yet the heat was already implacable. With the Easter vacationers long since gone, the only buzz in the village was that of bees, wasps and mosquitoes. According to the local paper, mosquitoes would be plaguing the village all year round from now on, for amongs
