Keystone Read Online Free PDF Page B

fit, but the driver seemed
unconcerned as he smiled at them and nodded his thanks.   Since they had left the motorway fifteen
minutes earlier, this was the first human they had seen.   Gail was increasingly excited as she looked
between the car’s satnav screen and the road, scanning the horizon for
something familiar that she would recognise from the hours spent online looking
at satellite images.   They were less than
three kilometres away from their destination, and she knew it wouldn’t be long
before something familiar cropped up.
      “There!” she exclaimed, moments later. “Over
there, those houses!”
    George had
just taken the car around a blind corner, revealing a group of flat-roofed
houses a hundred yards in front of them.   It was almost dreamlike, the scene so typical of a postcard of Egypt
that Gail laughed; a couple of children ran across the street chasing a
football, a lone chicken stood proudly on a low stone wall.   George let a large black sedan pass them, its
rear windows obscured, the stone-faced driver barely nodding at them in return.
    “Are you sure?”   George said glancing at the satnav,
which still claimed another two kilometres to go.
    “Absolutely!
Just past here on our left is a turning, which you take to cross the canal.
Ignore the satnav, it’s wrong.” Gail bounced in her seat as they drove past the
two children, who now appeared to be arguing about whether or not the street
lamp was the goalpost or not.   “Just
after that house,” she was almost shouting now, and George couldn’t stop
himself from grinning. “Now! Turn here!”
    George
indicated left and turned onto a small side street, sandwiched between two rows
of houses; telephone and electricity wires criss-crossed the street, like the
intertwined branches of trees meeting above an English country lane. “Are you
sure? This looks like a bit of an alley-way.”
    “Yes, I’m
certain. Just keep going along this street, it widens out!”   As the road did indeed widen she slapped
George’s leg and held it firmly with her right hand. “See?”
    The rows of
houses on both sides ended abruptly, and the street gave onto the concrete
banks of a canal. A few hundred yards to their right, a flat bridge crossed the
calm black water ten feet below.   Along
its edge ran a series of short concrete blocks designed to stop cars falling
whilst also letting water and debris pass unhindered over the bridge in times
of flood. The precaution seemed very optimistic, as currently the water couldn’t
be more than a few feet deep at most.   There were a few cars and people on the roads, but Gail had expected to
see many more.   Indeed, this was far from
the bustling small town full of activity that the satellite images had shown
her.
    “It’s not very
busy,” she said with a disappointed tone.
    George changed
gear and brought the car to a halt at a traffic light. The left indicator
flashed patiently as the engine ticked over, the fan from the air conditioning
whining in the heat. “They’re probably all watching Indemnity,” he said. They
had watched the dubbed American sitcom in amusement for half an hour in their
hotel room the previous night.   From the
frequent commercial breaks, they guessed it must have been a very popular show
in Egypt, too.
    The light
changed to green, missing amber completely.   George had grown used to this by now, it seemed that the middle light
was there purely as a spacer.   He moved
the car forward and turned onto the bridge across the canal.  
    “Where to
now?” he asked.
    “Carry on
straight, we should be entering Beni Amran soon,” she looked up and pointed at
a small sign in Arabic with an English translation written below. “There! Well,
it says ‘Ben Imran’, but that’s close enough.”
    Passing
through the small, mostly deserted village, they could see memories of a more
prosperous time; the sand was piled high in the doorways of houses and most
shops lay empty, the paint