A Decision by Lake Qarun
written by: Robin Wrigley
When Nana’s husband unexpectedly passed away, she was surrounded by friends and relatives to the point of suffocation. She stuck it through the funeral, which thankfully, though they were not Muslims, was over and done with shortly after Rodney’s death.
That evening, when the last of the mourners went home, and she had some time to rest and think for herself, she sat on the balcony of their bedroom and put her feet up on the camel-seat pouffe that was the usual resting place for her husband’s feet. It was a wedding present her uncle had given them. He had come all the way from Canada for the wedding and had no idea what sort of presents were given in Egyptian middle-class weddings. It had caused some rather unkind remarks from Nana’s sister, which had exacerbated the rift that existed between the two sisters.
Once their maid had served her customary tea, she dismissed her and told her to go home early, having to be overly firm with the girl, who felt it was her duty to stay. Now she simply wanted to gaze out into their garden and consult her inner self as to what she would do in the immediate future. It was Thursday, and tomorrow, being the start of the weekend, she could imagine her relatives would be planning to destroy her peace and quiet.
The one thought that surfaced through all her memories of her late husband was her father’s advice when she consulted him. ‘You are my firstborn Nana. I naturally wanted a son, but I’ve loved you more than I could were you a boy. Do what your heart tells you, and I will regard Rodney as that son.’
The thought of all the well-wishers bombarding her with false sorrow for the lost husband, who, if truth be known, none of them really cared for, caused her to consider just what Rodney would like. Way back when they announced their forthcoming marriage, her sister had the bare-faced effrontery to actually question her decision. She never really got over that. However, if truth be known, it came very close to Nana calling the marriage off.
No. To hell with them all; she picked up her iPad and Googled the hotel on Lake Qarun in Fayoum. She and an old girlfriend had lunch there not long before Rodney’s death. It was unlikely to be full as it was quite unfashionable and the last place her relatives would think of finding her. She rang, and to her delight, she got an automatic upgrade to a suite overlooking the lake. She made the booking. The receptionist sounded a little surprised at a single woman’s booking until she explained she had recently lost her husband, and they had intended to make the booking together. She also asked the girl to keep that information private.
The following morning, she packed an overnight bag and carried it downstairs before the maid arrived. She quickly wrote a short note saying she would be away for a few days and left it with her weekly wage. Outside, their driver was busy washing down the car and jumped in surprise at seeing her. She quickly explained that he could have the weekend off as she would drive herself.
‘But madam, please, I am happy to drive. Please, the family will think I am disrespectful by not following my duties.’
‘Siddique, please be quiet. I wish to be alone, so you go home. You can have time with your family. Come back on Sunday. Do you understand? Go, and give me the keys and open the gates.’
With that, she left the driver still pleading with her and drove out onto the street, wondering if she was doing the right thing. Her only slight hesitation was the fact that she had seldom (if ever) driven out of the suburb, let alone the city, since she was married. Strangely, this thought actually elated her. It represented absolute freedom; a chance to breathe and grieve properly in the way only her father would have understood. He was not alive to advise her anymore, and as her mother was in the early stages of dementia, all decisions would be left up to her.
By the time she hit the Corniche, her nerves had settled. She was listening to a Nina Simone CD. It was her favourite, but it was seldom, if ever, played in the car. By the time she was advancing up Pyramids Road, she was even more relaxed as she passed the road that led to her primary school, noticing how so much had changed from the time her father’s driver took her to school. She began to wonder what had happened to him once he became too old to drive the family. The combination of the music and concentration on the road ate through the time, she noticed the signs for the Mena House hotel and for a moment was tempted to stop for a coffee, but decided against it lest she risked bumping into someone who knew her and carried on, instead turning into the road to Fayoum.
Once she had left the straggling houses of the city, she began to feel the freedom she sought. All the fear of driving alone left her, and she played the CD again, listening possibly for the first time to the lyrics. Much as she loved Egyptian music, somehow in moments like this, English seemed to allow her a release, a removal from her current situation of being widowed and single again at the age of forty-three.
Her thoughts and the music engrossed her so much that the kilometres sped by unnoticed, and she was again startled to find herself entering the hotel’s entrance road. To her delight and amusement, they still had the three old and wrinkled musicians playing their welcome song, having scrambled into place from their resting shade. She dug in her purse for a suitable (and generous) note and gave it to the old player. She followed the porter up the step and into the hotel and registered at the reception desk.
The suite she was shown into was large enough to hold an entire family, and for a moment, Nana felt a twinge of guilt. Her recollection of the sheer gratitude that the little old flute player had shown when she gave him the bank note brought a tear to her eye, and the dam broke. All the tears she had been holding back over the sheer exhaustion and drama the funeral caused rolled down her face. The shock of Rodney’s death had previously been surreal. Never considered possible. Reality had now struck.
As quickly as she broke down, she pulled herself out of the outpouring of grief and undressed and showered once she had removed the small amount of facial makeup, relying on touch as she avoided looking at herself in the bathroom mirrors. Having dried herself, she dressed in the hotel bathrobe and opened the sliding door onto the balcony overlooking Lake Qarun, a small distance away. The balcony and seats were quite dusty, and there was an odd leaf in the corner. Beyond it was a scene of pure pleasure and solace. As no motorised boats were permitted on the lake, the silence of the fishermen in their small canoes casting the nets created the very ambience she sought.
The next thing she knew, looking at her wristwatch, it was just after two o’clock in the afternoon. She had slept the remainder of the morning away. Picking up the house phone, she called reception for room service and ordered a mixed salad and a pot of tea. It was too early to face the dining room.
Her salad and tea arrived, and she received them and ate them in complete silence apart from thanking the room boy with a tip. She sat sipping the tea and swallowed two aspirins from her bag while looking at her name on the docket for her lunch. Mdm. Askiri, she had retained her father’s family name for no other reason beyond keeping his name alive. The afternoon slipped by watching the small number of fishermen on the lake. The perfect silence allowed the view, to combine with her thoughts and give her peace.
At eight o’clock, her body told her she needed to eat; so she dressed quietly, careful to avoid appearing to be in mourning, and walked down into the dining room. The room was huge with seating and decorations suitable for a banquet of another era, but surely not in this century. There were two couples further along in the room, close to the swing doors to the kitchen. Further back on the opposite side of the room was a foreign man reading a book propped up on a cruet set and eating his meal.
Nana was ushered to a table on the same side as the man, but three tables back. She asked for a carafe of water and scanned the menu. The ‘Pot du Jour’ was badly typed on a sheet of the hotel’s stationery. She chose lentil soup and some warm Aish Baladi bread. While waiting for her order, she perused the huge empty space of a room that must have a myriad of stories of bygone days never to return. She was able to easily compare it to her family’s life, which caused her to smile to herself, just as the foreigner walked past her and returned the smile.
Her smile disappeared as quickly as it was born, with a deep blush of pure embarrassment. What am I doing? She silently admonished herself! Smiling at a Khawaja the day after her husband was buried?! Now she was even using her sister’s slang. She folded her napkin and walked back to her room. Fortunately, the lobby and staircase were empty. Having taken another two aspirins, she lay on the bed and sleep came to her easily.
The next morning, she got up completely refreshed, showered, and dressed casually in jeans and trainers and left the hotel walking quietly, skirting around the hotel into the circuitous road around the lake. A metre-high rough wall separated the water from the dirt road, and being so early, it was virtually quiet and empty apart from the odd child or dog.
She had only been walking for twenty minutes when she noticed the foreigner from the hotel. He was leaning over the wall, emptying a black cask the size of a ball used for ten-pin bowling. Dust was falling from the cask, and he tapped the bottom and put it into a leather bag at his side when he saw Nana. She had intended to slip behind him and continue her walk until he stepped back and smiled at her for the second time.
‘Well, good morning. You have brought sunshine to an otherwise sad occasion,’ he was obviously American and softly spoken. He went to raise his hat before realising he wasn’t wearing one. ‘I guess you need an explanation?’
Nana shrugged her shoulders as politely as she could and raised her hands waist high, palms uppermost in a totally noncommittal manner. ‘Not really, please excuse my interruption.’
‘I will explain all the same if you have a minute. You see, I was just releasing my daddy’s ashes into Lake Qarun. He died last week in Houston. This here lake, Lake Qarun, was the name of his oil company. Actually, not his company. It is the Egyptian Oil Company. My daddy was the geologist who discovered the oil field. What I just did was his dying wish.’
Nana was lost in his words, in fact, everything about him.
He gestured with an outstretched arm and said, ‘Shall we go eat breakfast?’
Here was an attractive and quite possibly rich American inviting her to breakfast. Was this the freedom she had just achieved? She imagined her long-lost Papa shaking his head.
‘That’s very kind of you. But no, I think I will continue my walk.’
He was left standing with his gesture.
Nana smiled and quietly said, ’There, Papa didn’t I do well.’
- A Decision by Lake Qarun - January 21, 2026
