What Country Am I In, Again?

Still damp from the hot springs we have been swimming in, we are barrelling through the back streets of Siwa, an oasis town in Egypt’s Western Desert, mudbrick houses looming out of the desert dark in the lights of the 4WD.

Then there is a bang.

Z flies into me. I ricochet into him.

My head slams into something.

And then there is silence.

I slowly begin to absorb that we have crashed. “Are you alright?” I ask.

“Yes,” Z says. He sounds normal, thank god. “Are you OK?”

Thank god! He’s OK. No tears. No damage.

That is the only thing that matters right now, that Z is OK, which he is.

“Yes,” I say. “I’m fine.”

The other guy in the car, the guy who was driving, he is alright, too.

I notice there is no window left next to me and that the door won’t open as we are nose down in a pile of sand and rubble, the body of the car suspended over a metre-deep hole.

Ah! I think, rather slowly. That would be the bang!

And the window has gone because my head has taken it out.

I clear the remaining fragments of glass from the window frame, and we climb, perfectly calmly, albeit in rather slow motion, through the empty frame onto sand.

It feels as though someone is pouring two streams of cool water down my face. It’s rather cool and nice, especially in this desert heat. Like having my face under a running tap.

Oh, I think, very slowly. I’m bleeding.

I’m bleeding A LOT.

This is going to worry Z.

“Oh my god, MUM!” he says.

I can’t see myself in the light of the headlights, which, bizarrely, are still on and actually shining through the heap of sand, but I can see Z’s face.

The guy, the guy who was driving – who is he? I feel like I know him from somewhere… – is pushing something to my forehead, some white cloth. On reflex, I take over and apply pressure with my hand.

“I’m fine, Z,” I say, pulling out the explanation that every parent uses at some point from deep in my sluggish brain, where it has lived since my parents used it with me. “Cuts on the face and head always bleed a lot. It’s because…”

Why is it? I don’t know why it is. I used to know this. Now I don’t. Is it because they’re near the surface? Lots of blood vessels?

No, that doesn’t make any sense. “It’s OK,” I say again. “No big deal. A lot of blood but nothing serious.”

I feel very shaky and sit down in a pile of sand.

All of a sudden, there is a guy with a kabout, a little motorbike powered trailer, and we are in the back of it, tooling through yet more darkened back streets.

“Z!” I say, panicking. “Does he know where we’re going?

“Yes,” Z says. “X gave him detailed directions.”

Ah! I think. So that’s the guy’s name.

And then it slips away again.

What was his name again? How did I know him? What were we doing in a car with him? And where were we going?

It is then that I realise I cannot remember the name of our hotel. Nor can I remember why we are here. Nor do I know what town we are in. Or what country.

“Do you know where we’re staying?” I say. “I can’t remember the name…”

“Yes,” Z says. “We’re staying at Siwa Gardens.”

“Is that what this place is called?” I ask. “Siwa? We’re in Egypt, right? Are we in Egypt? Yes, we are in Egypt, aren’t we? Oh my god. I can’t remember anything.”

This is terrifying. I rack my memory. Where are we? How did we get here? I know we had a crash, but what are we doing here?

And where the hell are we? Is this Indonesia? It doesn’t LOOK like Indonesia.

I start to babble hysterically, then stop. I’m absolutely terrified but worrying Z won’t help.

I think about what to say that’s not going to be too scary.

“OK,” I say. “Here’s the thing. I don’t think I’m seriously injured but I am concussed. I can’t remember anything. I can’t remember how we got here. I know there was a crash but I don’t know how. I don’t know where we are staying. I don’t know what town we are in. This isn’t unusual with concussion…”

“OK,” Z says. “We’re in Siwa. We were driving back from a camp with some hot springs and X took a bend in fifth and missed it.”

“Oh!” I say. “I thought there was a block in the road. A dune in the road. Where are we again?”

“We’re in Siwa,” Z says, patiently. “There was a big hole in the road, though. But we landed in some guy’s front garden. I think he took out his stall.”

“OK,” I say, trying not to babble. “I have short term memory loss. This isn’t that unusual with concussion. But it can also be a symptom of more serious head injuries. So you need to monitor me. If I still can’t remember things in the morning, or if you can’t wake me up, or if I start vomiting or falling over, you need to get me to a hospital. Our travel insurance is with…”

… I have no idea who our travel insurance is with…

I know, at the moment, who Z is, who I am and that we have been in a car crash and my head has taken out a window while travelling at 40 miles per hour or thereabouts.

I also know that I am concussed, could have more serious head injuries and might need to go to a hospital and get medevaced out for treatment.

We’re in Indonesia, right?

Don’t be stupid, I say to myself. Look at all this sand! Look at the dunes! Look at the mudbrick. We’re clearly in…

… Where are we again?…

… Oh, yeah. Egypt.

Weirdly, I am lucid enough to worry about this. I can’t remember anything but I can worry about not remembering anything. Which is progress, I guess.

This town – what’s it called again? – this is a small town, I think. No place to have head injuries.

They’ll need to, to put me in a machine, what do they call that thing they put you in to look at the state of your brain? They won’t have one here.

They won’t have anything here. Where is here again?

I try not to ask Z this, as I have a feeling I asked him already.

“We’re here,” Z says.

I fumble in my wallet for a note. It’s all monopoly money to me. What is the currency here? Egyptian pounds? What does that even mean?

I find a note. I like the colour of it and it looks right, although I’m not sure it will be enough. I hand it over. The guy drives off.

“Is this where we’re staying?” I ask.

It doesn’t look familiar. There’s a weird gateway. There are all these palm trees. And a huge garden. Where are we? I could get lost here.

What is this place? It’s like the apple orchard in Mr Wiz, but with palm trees instead of apples. I thought there was a pool here. I can’t see it.

“This is our room, Mum,” says Z.

My head is starting to hurt. I have bumps all over it and the cuts are bleeding again.

I really, really need a cigarette. But I don’t have a lighter! I don’t have a LIGHTER!

“That guy!” I say. “What’s his name? That guy! He has my lighter!”

“Well,” Z says. “Judging by the state of his car, he probably needs a cigarette more than you do.”

I begin to turn the room upside down, looking for a lighter, matches, any form of fire-making equipment. There’s nothing. I go out to the place where the man sometimes sits, but he’s not there.

Can I open the drawers and look in there? Something tells me I shouldn’t do that.

I feel like I’m in a dream. When I come back to our room, it looks like a new place, again, and in the mirror my face looks too bloody and too old to be mine.

Nothing is familiar, because my memory is shot to pieces. “Tell me what happened again,” I say, in between futile requests to Z to go to the place with the man and find matches.

“We spent the day in the desert with X,” Z says. “He’s our friend. You know him from Abdu restaurant. We went to a salt lake and watched the sunset. Then we had dinner at a camp with some hot springs. And on the way back, X was driving in fifth, which he shouldn’t have been doing in Siwa, and misjudged a bend.”

“Oh!” I say, rather monotonously. “So THAT’s his name? What town are we in again?… ”

I sleep, eventually.

In the morning, I wake in a surreal sort of panic.

I remember being in a crash. I lost something in the car! What did I lose?

My camera’s there.

Oh f*ck, I think. My computer.

After locating my computer, my next thought is nicotine. I know I don’t have a lighter, because I spent an hour or so looking for one, and I’m pretty sure I’ve lost my shoes.

I wander over to reception. I know the word! And I recognise the place! No one’s there. But it’s breakfast time, so they’re probably in the kitchen, cooking. I know where that is, which is good.

I know the name of the place we’re in and I know the name of the manager.

“Do you have matches?” I ask.

“What happened?” Sami, the manager, says.

I realise that I have two inch-long cuts on my forehead, which is still covered in blood. Z offered to dose me up with iodine last night but I said I wanted to shower first.

Yes, I admit it. I’m a wimp.

“There was a car crash,” I say. “My head smashed the window. Z’s fine. Me, I have some cuts. But, I’m OK.”

“Hamdilullah!” S says, inspecting the cuts.

“Hamdilullah!” I say. Thanks be to god!

I grab a coffee and a cigarette, and head back to our room to begin the task of waking Z up and to try and clean up my cuts a bit.

“Wakey-wakey!” I say.

He sits bolt upright, not, for once, to complain about this mode of address, which irritates the hell out him now he’s a fine upstanding chap of 11.

“OK, Mum,” he says. “What can you remember? Can you remember everything now?”

“Yes,” I say. “We’re in Siwa. In Egypt. We were at a camp with some hot springs and X was driving us back, when we crashed.”

“Oh good,” he says. “Your memory’s come back.”

“Yeah,” I say. My head feels sore as hell and I have some other bruises I have yet to assess, plus I’m feeling strangely tearful and have two deep gashes in my forehead.

“But you know how I always say that it’s ridiculous that you have to wear seatbelts in the back seat in the EU? And that that’s over-regulation? If we’d been wearing seatbelts, I wouldn’t have cannoned into you, and both my head and the window would still be fine.”

Not, of course, that most Egyptian vehicles HAVE rear seatbelts.

“I think we should probably think about going back to Alex,” Z says. “You need to rest today, and then I think we go back to Alex tomorrow. On a bus. Because buses don’t crash.”

“Unfortunately,” I say. “Buses do crash. Often.”

But I figure we’ve had our crash for the time being.

And, in fact, to have travelled for more than two years with only the odd slow-motion bike crash makes us lucky.

Very lucky indeed.

Hamdilullah, as they say here. Thank god.

And, if there is a next time, which there won’t be, this time Z will know what to do.