The Tooth Fairy: Parents, Lovers, and Other Wayward Deities (A Memoir) by Clifford Chase Page A
Authors: Clifford Chase
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my capacity for astonishment awakened.
The first time John had ever spoken to me was in astonishment—we were standing next to a small pond in early spring listening
to weird-sounding frogs—“Wow,” he said, and I knew I wanted to know him.
Just as now we exchanged glances again and again in the cab.
Here, the space between sentences might suggest the gap between the part of me that was happy with John and the part of me
that wasn’t.
Gigantic billboards around the traffic circle advertised Egyptian movies with gigantic hand-painted faces of Egyptian movie
stars.
Odor of unregulated car exhaust; frenetic plinking on the taxi radio.
The hotel appeared not to have been renovated since the 1920s and exuded a shabby colonial glamour: intricate wrought-iron
gate; two-tier lobby chandelier, also wrought iron; dusty ornate carpet runner flanked by heavy, carved thrones.
Poker-faced handsome lobby clerk with Coptic cross tattoo on forearm.
I strongly suspected John had slept around in New York while I was away for three weeks earlier that summer, but I had said
nothing.
We had tried couples therapy the previous year, but I never did get that key to his apartment.
I had been with G., my previous boyfriend, just about four years, of which I now saw the final three as wasted time.
John and I smiled at one another as we ascended the creaky steps, and again as we entered our huge dilapidated room with its
tall shutters, worn red velvet drapes, tiled floor, and sagging maroon twin beds with massive dark-wood headboards.
I had decided I wanted to go back to our couples counselor, but I had put off telling John.
I hoped that our vacation in Egypt—far from ordinary distractions—would be a good time to talk about it.
Muffled sounds of motorcycles, horns, footsteps, people shouting.
“I feel strangely at home here,” I said, lying on my back and looking up at the cracked ceiling. “Me too,” John said.
2
I NDEED C AIRO OFFERED no ordinary distractions, only extraordinary ones.
We spent most of the next day with Abdul and Ali, a pair of young men who befriended us on the street as we puzzled over a
map. They helped us 1) find the American Express office; 2) make our train reservations to Aswan for later inthe week; 3) get our passport-size photos taken; 4) obtain fake student ID’s so we could save money on the already low entrance
fees to museums and other sights.
John and I were poorer back then, but not that poor. Nor were we students. I was thirty-nine and John was thirty.
I had caught a bad cold in Israel and was still jetlagged, thus I actually believed that these two friendly Egyptians were
art students, that they were brothers, and that their names were indeed Abdul and Ali.
As soon as we accepted their aid, it was as if we entered a tunnel of gradually deepening trust.
Theory: Because my mother felt my father never listened to her, I doubted John could ever listen to me.
My mother’s own disinclination to listen must also be taken into account.
Though John and I flattered ourselves that we were setting out on a fascinating cross-cultural friendship with Abdul and Ali,
we tried numerous times to get rid of them by offering baksheesh, but they wouldn’t hear of it.
Like all good confidence men they kept each of us engaged separately in conversation, so that we never had the opportunity
to compare notes.
John and I did, however, exchange glances at Abdul’s suggestion to go to his uncle’s papyrus-painting shop, since we hoped
this was what the two men had wanted all along, a commission on whatever we bought.
In the dim room we gazed at dozens of colorful images of pharaohs, barges, and various gods inked onto brown crinkly paper
guaranteed to be real papyrus, not banana leaf.
“Did you paint any of them?” I naïvely asked, but Ali said no, they were still learning.
In our foolish parsimony, John and I bought only a single small painting, and thus began our next
The first time John had ever spoken to me was in astonishment—we were standing next to a small pond in early spring listening
to weird-sounding frogs—“Wow,” he said, and I knew I wanted to know him.
Just as now we exchanged glances again and again in the cab.
Here, the space between sentences might suggest the gap between the part of me that was happy with John and the part of me
that wasn’t.
Gigantic billboards around the traffic circle advertised Egyptian movies with gigantic hand-painted faces of Egyptian movie
stars.
Odor of unregulated car exhaust; frenetic plinking on the taxi radio.
The hotel appeared not to have been renovated since the 1920s and exuded a shabby colonial glamour: intricate wrought-iron
gate; two-tier lobby chandelier, also wrought iron; dusty ornate carpet runner flanked by heavy, carved thrones.
Poker-faced handsome lobby clerk with Coptic cross tattoo on forearm.
I strongly suspected John had slept around in New York while I was away for three weeks earlier that summer, but I had said
nothing.
We had tried couples therapy the previous year, but I never did get that key to his apartment.
I had been with G., my previous boyfriend, just about four years, of which I now saw the final three as wasted time.
John and I smiled at one another as we ascended the creaky steps, and again as we entered our huge dilapidated room with its
tall shutters, worn red velvet drapes, tiled floor, and sagging maroon twin beds with massive dark-wood headboards.
I had decided I wanted to go back to our couples counselor, but I had put off telling John.
I hoped that our vacation in Egypt—far from ordinary distractions—would be a good time to talk about it.
Muffled sounds of motorcycles, horns, footsteps, people shouting.
“I feel strangely at home here,” I said, lying on my back and looking up at the cracked ceiling. “Me too,” John said.
2
I NDEED C AIRO OFFERED no ordinary distractions, only extraordinary ones.
We spent most of the next day with Abdul and Ali, a pair of young men who befriended us on the street as we puzzled over a
map. They helped us 1) find the American Express office; 2) make our train reservations to Aswan for later inthe week; 3) get our passport-size photos taken; 4) obtain fake student ID’s so we could save money on the already low entrance
fees to museums and other sights.
John and I were poorer back then, but not that poor. Nor were we students. I was thirty-nine and John was thirty.
I had caught a bad cold in Israel and was still jetlagged, thus I actually believed that these two friendly Egyptians were
art students, that they were brothers, and that their names were indeed Abdul and Ali.
As soon as we accepted their aid, it was as if we entered a tunnel of gradually deepening trust.
Theory: Because my mother felt my father never listened to her, I doubted John could ever listen to me.
My mother’s own disinclination to listen must also be taken into account.
Though John and I flattered ourselves that we were setting out on a fascinating cross-cultural friendship with Abdul and Ali,
we tried numerous times to get rid of them by offering baksheesh, but they wouldn’t hear of it.
Like all good confidence men they kept each of us engaged separately in conversation, so that we never had the opportunity
to compare notes.
John and I did, however, exchange glances at Abdul’s suggestion to go to his uncle’s papyrus-painting shop, since we hoped
this was what the two men had wanted all along, a commission on whatever we bought.
In the dim room we gazed at dozens of colorful images of pharaohs, barges, and various gods inked onto brown crinkly paper
guaranteed to be real papyrus, not banana leaf.
“Did you paint any of them?” I naïvely asked, but Ali said no, they were still learning.
In our foolish parsimony, John and I bought only a single small painting, and thus began our next
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