(He Was Violated With A Falafel has appeared in Matrix in Canada and the US)

There can be few things more distressing on your holiday than peering down an Egyptian toilet after an uncomfortable squirt to discover you’ve been smuggling a stranger. There, amongst the chocolaty froth, lies your first child, an inch long, tailed, wriggling. You realise you might still be carrying its twin, and feel a bit like Sigourney Weaver.

The mind begins to race. Who is responsible? That falafel on the street corner? That final Linda McCartney sausage back home?
            “Are you sure this is for worms?” I asked at the chemist, looking at the box they’d handed me.
            “Yes, for worms, sir.”
            “Not diarrhoea?” I asked.
            They stared blankly.
            “Worms. Worms!” I said. I ran around the shop, pretending to be a chicken pecking the ground. “You know. Not diarrhoea.” I got into a squat and blew several raspberries. “Not that!”
            It was time to leave.
            “Jason, how much d’you think I should take?” I asked my Calgary friend back at the Baharia hotel.
            “You wanna blast that thing out, man. Dose up and blast it out,” he said coolly. Jason said he’d worked with animals, so I decided I'd follow his advice. I sat down to lunch and had double helpings. “That's right, my friend. You're eating for two.”

After lunch, we set off in a four-wheel-drive for a camping excursion in the Black and New White deserts. When we approached the Sahara's Great Sand Sea two days later, I looked maybe eight and a half months’ pregnant. My arsehole was clamped like a vice. I was praying for the runs. My poor worm must have suffocated to death. All I'd achieved in forty-eight hours squeezing were piles like stressballs.           

A Land Rover with two Delhi doctors arrived by chance at our camp at midnight.
            “Could you do me a favour?” I asked. “Can you tell me if this medication is for worms?” I handed over the box. and he read it by firelight.
            “What is this? What is this?” He shook his head. “No, no, no, no. Dis is not for vorm.”
            I paled. “What is it for, then?”
            “Dis is to stop you going to toilet! How much you take?” A smile ripped across his dark face.
            “The whole box,” I confessed quietly.
            “The whole box!” he shouted. “My God! You vill not shit for two veeks!” The doctors doubled over, struggling for breath amid their laughter.

En route back to Cairo, the coach ride took over six hours. Without air-conditioning. I watched a crackly Arabic film, in which a thief performed unlikely summersaults, and focussed on not going into labour. The contractions were increasing in frequency now. I could feel kicking. I asked the driver, but there were no doctors on board to help in an emergency delivery. Halfway through our ride, our conductor insisted everyone play musical chairs. “Breath. Breath,” I told myself, being shunted the length of the bus.

Back in Cairo, the pharmacist knew exactly what to do. “Take two laxatives before you go to bed,” he said. Before I go to bed? I thought. What the hell would my roommates think at being woken in the night with shit dripping from my bedsheets? I popped two pills immediately and went out for falafel dinner.

My meal was cut short. After three bites, I was racing to the bog. There, I extruded a substance as solid as concrete. It gave a clunk as it struck the bottom of the bowl. With all that pressure, heat and gas, I feared my poor worm might have turned to diamond, but it was enormous relief; another day, I thought, and I'd have to undergo a Caesarean.

“Hello, my friend! How are you?” called out the chubby Egyptian on the street corner. “Where are you from?”
            “Scotland.”
            “Aaaah! Scotland! Yes! Whisky! Auchtermuchty! My brother, he live there! I could tell by the colour of your…”
            “Skin.”
            “Yes! Scotland! I have been there many, many time! For how long you have been in Cairo?”
            “A day.”
            “Only a day! For how long you stay?”
            “A month.”
            “In which hotel you stay?”
            “The Bostan.”
            “The Bostan! This is very expensive, no? How many brothers and sisters you have?”
            “One brother, two sisters.”
            “I have three daughter.” He gripped me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. I no ask you to marry! I am friend, yes? I have friends from all round the world! Why you no smile? It’s all right…Where you go now?”
            “The Ukrainian embassy.”
            “It’s two o’clock, my friend. It’s closed. It opens in one hour. I show you the way…Why you no smile?” His hand swept across his toothy grin. “Friend. Friend.” He tapped his chest each time in reassurance. “I am Mohammad. What is your name?” His hand extended and took hold of mine. He was not letting go.

“Oh, look! This is my shop!” he said in a tone of surprise, bending his head to get through the doorway, still holding my hand. “Please. You come take a look at my many, many Scottish friends.”
            The walls were lined with cabinets holding glass bottles containing sickly-coloured potions. There was a strong smell of soap. Mohammad led me to a tabletop covered with yellowing photos of startled-looking backpackers. “She come from Scotland…and she come from Scotland,” he pointed. “Many, many friends!”
            “Her?”
            “Yes, her also! And this man, you know who he is?” He indicated a picture on the wall showing a number of people around a table at a dinner convention.
            “It’s Dustin Hoffman,” I said.
            “Yes! And this man?”
            “Mohammad Ali.”

“Yes! They are friends of mine. They come to my shop! Here. Look. This is Mohammad Ali with my father! And now you must sign. All my friends sign my guest book. You must give me your address. I’ll send you Christmas card. Look. Millions and millions of friends!” He leafed rapidly through the pages. “I send them all Christmas cards every year! Please. Sit.” He pushed me onto some cushions.
            “Look. Please. I’m not interested in buying anything.”
            “Saliiiiim!” he screamed, and a boy, fifteen, came tottering down the stairs. “Get our friend some coffee!” ordered Mohammad.
            “No. Please. Honestly. I want to go.”
            Mohammad turned back to face me. “You insult me? Take coffee! One drink. It’s Arab custom...Why you no smile?”
            “Well, if you insist…”
            He sat down in front of me like a shoe fitter. “OK. Now who you buy present for?”
            “Whoa, whoa, whoa! I’m not…”
            He silenced me with a wave. “Come on. Tell me. Mother? Sister?”
            “I’m not looking to buy anything.”
            “Wait, wait.” He turned. “Saliiiiim! Bring me some jars!”
            Salim presented them along with the coffee. The contents of the jars looked like ghastly-coloured shampoos.
            “I hand pick each flower from my farm in the north of the country to make this. Now listen.” Mohammad gripped my shoulder again. “No alcohol! One hundred percent pure! Lavender! Smell!” He thrust a bottle under my nose. It smelled like Vic’s Vaporub. “Now listen. You must get today, because tomorrow I leave to pick flowers for one and a half month. Now, what I propose is…just small.” He indicated what small looked like with his fingers. “Not big jar. Small. Ten Egyptian pounds! That’s just one your pound!”
            “I’m not...”
            He pulled my head towards his mouth. “Five pounds,” he whispered in my ear, so that Salim couldn’t hear.
            “Five pounds,” I repeated out loud.
            “Ha!” snorted Salim, disgusted.
            “Look. Please, I…”
            “Four pound,” said Mohammad.
            “I’m not…”
            “Three.”
            “I…”
            “Two.”
            At less than one Egyptian pound he gave a terrifying growl. “Come!” he ordered and led me towards the door. Suddenly he developed a crippled walk that wasn’t there when I entered the shop, and instead of letting me out the door, he forced me up the stairs. I looked on in bewilderment as it took him two minutes to mount the twelve steps. His hands pressed hard on the walls above him and he stopped to bend over and wheeze.
            “Saliiiim! Fetch more coffee!”
            “Please. I’m just trying to get to the embassy. I don’t want…”
            “You insult me? Arab custom is two drinks. Two coffees. You friend.” He frowned heavily.
            The room upstairs was piled high with cheap Egyptian papyrus. Salim silently handed me another coffee (this time it was cold and I was paranoid it’d been drugged) and he began showing me the painted scrolls. I shuddered at the tasteless designs.
            “Genuine papyrus!” announced Mohammad. “Look, it doesn’t break.” He tugged one forcefully. “Some people will try to sell you banana paper. This is real!”
            Salim joined in. “How do you know it’s real? You know it’s real because,” he licked his finger and pressed on a picture, “the paint comes off!”
            “Ten Egyptian pounds!” offered Mohammad.
            I was almost breaking into tears. “I just want to go.”
            “For you, my friend, nine pounds. Any one you want. Any, any one. Which?”
            I shook my head.
            “What do I have to do?” shouted Mohammad, raising his head and arms heavenward. “Name your price!”
            “I don’t…”
            “Fine! Take it for free!” He spat on the floor and hurled a scroll at my chest.
            “I really don’t want one.”
            Now it was Salim’s turn to lose his temper. “Come on, man! At least pay for your coffee. You’ve taken up an hour of our time! Give us money for that!”
            Out on the street and around the block, I heard,
            “Hello, my friend! How are you? Where are you from?” The man had many, many friends from Greenland, and a picture of Dustin Hoffman on his wall.

© 2004-2007 All rights reserved. Angus JJ Bell.