Thursday night for the first time I felt the thrill of passing for alocal. On the phone anyway. I was sitting in the passenger seat ofmy taxi driver, Ziad, at around 12:45 AM. It's a longer ride, from the shadow of the pyramids back to downtown. I am hoping to get some practice in so I make several attempts at conversation; however, Ziad doesn't really seem to by talkative. After a short conversation about how he has been to Boston but wasn't really impressed, we both fellsilent and that seemed to be it. He doesn't seem to be intrigued that I speak Arabic, and I am too tired to continue to press him. So I turn to the right and gaze out at the poor neighborhoods we are passing and then the Nile as we turn north onto the Corniche running right along the river.





Then his phone rings. He picks it up, looks at the caller ID, grunts, and ignores it. A minute later it rings again. Again with a huff he presses ignore. After the third time he checks his watch and turns to me.





"Do you know how to answer the phone?" he asks in Arabic.





"Yes, of course I do," I respond, thinking how Americans invented the telephone.





"What do you say?"





"You pick it up and say, 'hello?'" I say, wondering where this is going.





"OK. She's going to call again in exactly 10 minutes. I want you topick up my phone and tell her I'm asleep."





"OK," I say, my curiosity still not quite satiated.





"If she asks who you are, tell her you're my cousin and that I'll call her back in the morning."





I think to myself, "Are you serious?" But then say, "So who is this that I'll be talking to?"





"My fiancee."





"Why don't you just answer and talk to her?"





"We're mad at each other."





With a chuckle I inwardly reflect that I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I find it quite amusing that I am being asked to pose as my taxi driver's cousin. On the other, I don't want toget involved in this domestic dispute.





Sure enough, 10 minutes later the phone rings again. The taxi driverturns to me.





"You ready?"





I nod and take the phone from him. "Hello?" I speak into the phone.





"Who is this?" an angry sounding female voice shouts into the phone in Arabic."This is Ziad's cousin." I respond quickly, trying hard not to giggle. I feel like a little kid who is prank calling the neighbor girl on whom he has a crush. I look over at Ziad, who shows no sign of amusement.





"Who?"





"This is Ziad's cousin."





"What's your name?"





I momentarily freeze as this wasn't part of the game. "Khalid." I mumble. She doesn't hear me. "Khalid," I repeat again. "My name isKhalid."





"Give me Ziad," she says, still clearly unimpressed but apparently buying it.





"I'm sorry but he's asleep," I say, wondering if she can hear the sound of the wind rushing in my window as we cruise across the Tahrir Street bridge going past Zamalek.





"He's asleep?" she says, sounding skeptical.





I again look outside, gaging our speed to be around 90 km/hour. I almost have to yell it to be heard. "Yeah, he's sleeping. He'llcall you back in the morning." Heck, it wasn't my problem.





"Where are you?" she asks.





Gulp. "Um, my apartment." Right then one of the passing cars decides for no particular reason to punctuate his passing with a loud horn.





"Where?" she repeats. I have to cover my ear to hear her.





"My apartment. I live downtown and I'm outside on my balcony." Nice recovery! I inwardly congratulate myself.





"OK. Tell him to call me in the morning."





"OK. Thanks, have a good night."





"Bye."





"Bye." I hand the phone back to Ziad, who nods in approval.





"You told her Iwas asleep?"





"Yeah, I told her you were asleep and that you'd call her back in themorning."





"And you told her that you were my cousin?"





"Yep. And that my name was Khalid."





"Khalid?" he says, looking at me for a moment.





"Yeah, I told her my name was Khalid."





For the first time a trace of a smile once again steals across his face as he nods in approval, then he returns to his frown and the heavy silence within the car resumes. I turn back and notice that another car has passed us while Ziad slows down to avoid a rough patch of road. I find myself thankful on the one hand that for once I actually have a careful driver,though I'm also annoyed because I'm kind of tired and want to get home quickly.





"How long have you been engaged?" I ask.



"A year."



"And when's the wedding?"



"End of July." Wow. Hope he gets whatever this problem is worked out.



"Congratulations in Shaa Allah," I say, adding the obligatory phrase"God willing" always used for any future event in Arabic, though this time I find in being additionally meaningful and appropriate.



"Thanks," he says.T he next 5 minutes are spent in silence as I ponder his impending marriage in gloom, reflecting on how I hope never to use random strangers to avoid speaking with my fiancee.



Then all of a sudden, as we pull up to the corner where I need to get out, I think to myself: Wait a minute, I just pretended to be an Egyptian, and kind of got away with it. Is this cat thinking my Egyptian's good enough to pass on the phone, or was he so desperate to just have his fiancee get off his case for the night that he just didn't care that the lie would be so obvious since I was clearly not even Arab. Before I can ask, we are there, and with the rush of Cairo traffic I have to hurry to get out of the car and pay him my fare. He drives away and I'm left alone standing in the midst of the midnight crush in Midan al-Tahrir (Freedom Square), amidst thousands of Cairenes just getting their Thursday night started. After a moment I turn and start walking towards my apartment, which is mercifully tucked away in one of the sidestreets a couple of blocks away from the main square. Within ten minutes of walking into my apartment I am fast asleep.