NILE-SURFING
VENDORS
In mathematics, a classic problem is to calculate time, speed, or distance from point A to point B. Point A could be Aswan and point B Luxor—or the other way around, depending on whether you travel the Nile from south to north or from north to south—roughly 200 kilometers of a river that stretches for 6,853 kilometers.
For the street vendors, tightrope walkers, cowboys, surfers, or rowboat traders along this stretch of the Nile, it makes a great difference whether they sell their goods closer to point A or point B.
Prices shift dramatically. A towel printed with the pyramids, for instance, might cost ten times more at the start in Aswan than it does near the locks of Esna, where their trade comes to an end as the gates close to adjust the water level.
From your cabin, you hear voices calling out. You know none of this when you first step aboard a cruise ship on the banks of Aswan. From your cabin, you hear voices calling out—María, Amparo, Lola. You wonder how they can guess the passengers’ nationality almost at a glance, or how skillfully they cast a rope from a small rowboat up to a towering motor vessel.
They are part of the cruise itself, another attraction. The ritual of bargaining begins once again, this time on the waters of the Nile.
Death on the Nile was published in 1937.
Looking out through the window, I find myself recalling the story and thinking how poorly it has aged. I can no longer imagine a death on the Nile without one of these vendors appearing as yet another character in the scene.
