After a grueling flight, Zaliyah had booked them a lavish master suite overlooking the city. Naturally, because Zaliyah refused to let his daughter sleep in a separate room in a foreign country, he had yielded the massive king-sized feather bed to Sylaris while he curled his long, slender frame onto the parlor couch.
He woke up with a kink in his neck, only to find Sylaris standing over him, already fully dressed for their trip to the Pyramids.
Her outfit was... an event.
She wore a black-and-white varsity bomber jacket over a pink-and-white thin-striped ruffled shirt, paired with high-waisted wide-leg cargo jeans featuring ridiculous utility pockets, finished with white sneakers and a bright pink flower claw clip holding up her hair.
Zaliyah, meanwhile, had curated his outfit with high-fashion precision. He wore a short-sleeved, dark brown camp-collar button-down featuring intricate white floral embroidery, relaxed cream linen trousers that pooled gracefully over his beige suede slip-on loafers, a classic gold watch, and his long hair twisted up into a bun.
He looked like an old-money aristocrat on holiday. Sylaris looked like a streetwear influencer who had gotten lost.
Oh wow, she looks like a small influencer. She could have looked much worse, Zaliyah thought.
He involuntarily remembered how, yesterday, Sylaris had held up a small package she'd bought at the Cairo airport.
"Look, Dad, I bought this Egyptian costume at the airport. It has a gold collar, a striped headdress, a plastic staff, oh wow, it even has a golden cobra headpiece. Since we are in Egypt, I thought we should dress like the Egyptians."
"Egyptians do not dress like that. Sylaris, please don't embarrass me on foreign soil."
"It's for the theme, Dad. I'm gonna wear this and then ride a camel. I will look like a pharaoh."
Zaliyah sighed, massaging his temples. Maybe we should have just gone to Poland, he thought. "No, Sylaris. People here do not ride camels while wearing some ugly, cheap shit, so no! You are not wearing that."
"Why?" she asked, genuinely confused.
He didn't know what else to do. Insulting the costume only made her ask more questions, and he was in no mood to explain why she couldn't wear some trashy plastic. So he did the only logical thing.
He spent forty minutes, using the words "dignity," "respect," and "please, for the love of God, no" in the same sentence, to finally convince her why it was a dumb idea to cosplay on a camel. She had only surrendered when he promised she could pick their dinner that night.
When they arrived at the Pyramids, the heat hit them like a wall. The plateau was bustling with street vendors, tourists, and lines of towering camels.
He glanced around at the crowds streaming toward the pyramids: shorts, sun hats, sneakers, water bottles. Everyone in casual clothes. Everyone normal.
Thank God she didn't wear that cheap costume, otherwise I would have been embarrassed to oblivion, Zaliyah noted internally.
He looked down at the little girl. "If you had worn that fuckass costume into the Giza plateau, I would have walked at least ten paces behind you pretending I was a hired chaperone," Zaliyah drawled coldly, adjusting his collar.
Sylaris pouted, her chubby cheeks puffing out. "I don't care, I will wear it next time we come here."
"Probably with your father, not with me," Zaliyah replied.
As they walked toward the ancient structures, two local Egyptian shopkeepers whispered in Arabic as Zaliyah passed.
"anzur 'iilaa dhalik alsaayiha... hal tilk amra'atun? shaeruha 'abyad bialkamil." (Look at that tourist... is that a woman? Her hair is completely white.)
"la ya 'akhi, anzur 'iilaa sadrihi. 'iinah rajulu. la buda 'anah min dawlat gharbiatin. yusmh lilrijal hunak bialialtifat 'iilaa alnisa'i." (No, brother, look at his chest. It's a man. Must be from a Western country. Men are allowed to turn to women over there.)
"shaear 'abyad masbughin... 'ajanib majanini." (Dyed white hair... crazy foreigners.)
Zaliyah, who understood perfectly well that he was being discussed, simply rolled his eyes and kept his chin high. He wasn't certain what they were saying, but he knew it somehow had to do with his gender. He was used to the misgendering; it happened on literally every continent on Earth.
"Dad! Look!" Sylaris squealed, pointing at a boy selling small papyrus bookmarks.
Zaliyah walked over to the vendor to buy a small hibiscus cold drink for Sylaris. The vendor, seeing Zaliyah's high-end appearance, smiled warmly. "For you, my beautiful lady—ah, sir! Fifty dollars."
Zaliyah blinked. Fifty dollars for a street drink? He knew he was being scammed. He knew the price was marked up at least five times the normal rate. But the blazing desert sun was frying his skin, and Sylaris was staring at the cup like a hawk.
He gave the man a deadpan stare, slapped the money down, and snatched the drink. "Keep the change."
"Dad, look! A camel!" Sylaris shouted.
Before Zaliyah could stop her, she darted toward a decorated camel sitting in the sand. Zaliyah's heart leaped into his throat. "Sylaris! Get back here, those things spit!"
While Zaliyah stood ten feet away, terrified of the giant, chewing beast, Sylaris casually scrambled up onto the saddle with the help of the handler. She sat atop the massive camel like a tiny, triumphant general, waving her hands.
"Take a picture, Dad. Quick! Angle it so the Pyramid is behind my head" she yelled.
"Hold on to the reins" Zaliyah called out nervously, backing away as the camel grunted. He whipped out his phone, taking thirty rapid photos while praying the animal wouldn't suddenly decamp into the horizon.
A local little girl standing near her mother pointed up at Sylaris's bright white pigtails. "Mama! anzuri 'iilaa shaeriha! hal yumkinuni sabgh shaeriun biallawn al'abyad mithl alfatat al'ajnabiati?" (Mommy! Look at her hair! Can I dye my hair white like the foreign girl?)
Her mother laughed, patting her daughter's head. "la ya eazizati, nahn natamatae bishaer 'aswad jamil; duei sabaghat alshier algharibat lilsuyahi." (No, sweetie. We have beautiful black hair. Leave the crazy hair dye to the tourists.)
Sylaris looked down at the little girl, grinned, and flashed a peace sign as Zaliyah snapped the final photo.
The man helped her step down, and Sylaris rushed to her dad, smiling widely. She grabbed the phone from Zaliyah's hand and looked through the photos he had taken.
The camel owner, dressed in a white galabeya, swept toward them, arms open, teeth flashing.
"Ahlan! That would be only one hundred dollars."
Zaliyah looked at the man. The man looked at Zaliyah, smiling.
Sylaris looked at the man, frowning. "Huh? All I did was sit on it. One hundred dollars for just sitting on that ugly animal?"
"It's a special price for you... if you want, you can have the camel ride."
Sylaris opened her mouth to talk, but Zaliyah quickly closed it with his hand.
He had never haggled in his life and it wasn't going to change now. He believed haggling was for peasants. He opened his wallet, counted out the bills, and handed them over.
The man smiled. "Ahh, shukran lak... thank you, thank you, sir," he said, backing away.
"Dad," Sylaris whispered. "I think that's a lot. You should have bargained."
"I'm anti-bargaining," Zaliyah murmured.
"So, you're pro getting scammed."
"Yes, now mind your business."
Then Sylaris turned around, her eyes falling on a huge pyramid. It was arguably the biggest they'd seen since they arrived, rising out of the haze, enormous and golden.
Sylaris immediately went silent.
It was the first time she had been silent since they arrived in Giza. Zaliyah looked down at her. Her eyes were wide, her mouth slightly open, her hand gripping his phone tightly.
"Dad, look," she said. "It is so big..."
Zaliyah turned his head, looking where she was pointing. "Wow, it really is huge."
She chuckled. "It looks like an ice cream."
"Try not to lick it, then."
"I wasn't going to—" She paused, then continued. "I was thinking about it."
They laughed, moving closer to the pyramid.
Zaliyah wasn't fond of taking photos, but under Sylaris's dictatorship he was forced to photograph everything. She made him pose holding the pyramid tip between two fingers, then pinching it, then pretending to eat it. She made a stranger take a dozen pictures of the two of them, white hair tangled in the wind, her arm around his waist, her chin lifted. She made him do a peace sign. In three of them, his expression was pure murder.
In the last one, he was laughing, but he didn't notice.
A teenage guide stopped them near the stone steps, looked at Zaliyah, then at the stack of photos on Zaliyah's phone, which, as usual, was in Sylaris's hand. "Habibi, are you an actor? A model?"
Before Zaliyah could respond, Sylaris cut in. "No, he's not an actor and he's not a model. I'm tired of you people always asking. Please leave us alone."
The boy smiled, thinking, Ya lilwaqahati... la shaka 'anaha badinat kajumal 'akhiha, wajasaduha yandah biqilat aliahtirami. (Wow... so rude. No doubt she's fat like my brother's camel, her body is full of disrespect.)
Zaliyah bent his head in embarrassment. He quickly flashed her a dead glare before forcing a painful smile at the boy. "Ana asif. The sun is too hot, so she's a little confused—"
The boy didn't let him finish. "Huh? You speak my language?"
"No, he doesn't," Sylaris yelled. "Now leave us alone, 'Habibi,' " she repeated in a mocking tone.
Zaliyah sighed. Indeed, she was right: he didn't speak the language, but he had briefly learned certain phrases because he knew she was going to say or do something embarrassing in Egypt which he would need to apologize for.
He quickly slapped his palm over Sylaris's mouth, sealing it shut. Sylaris kept trying to talk, but Zaliyah just pressed harder. He smiled, pointing at the sky. "It's really hot. She's a little annoying whenever it gets too hot, and no, I'm not a model."
The boy smiled. "You don't have to lie. She's rude and fat like most tourists, and I think you should be a model. I have to go now." He waved at Zaliyah. "Bye bye." Then he turned and started running ahead.
Zaliyah finally released his hand from Sylaris's mouth and sighed, thinking, *
Okay... that wasn't too bad. Maybe there's still worse to come.
"Did he just call me fat?" Sylaris pouted, folding her arms.
"And rude." Zaliyah replied.
"Oh, I will show him—" Sylaris yelled, walking forward in the same direction the boy had taken.
Zaliyah grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her back. "Trying to get beat up, are you? Do you think I'll interfere if he decides to thrash you? Stop being dramatic and come, let's go to the museum," Zaliyah said, dragging her across the sand.