Just what the doctor ordered.

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These have been dark days for me in Cairo: crippled by a chest cold, smothered by the smog, huddled in bed like a refugee while the rest of the hostel smokes sheesha and wisecracks in the lounge. It’s hardly been the week I’d imagined. My final days in Cairo were meant to be days of fresh insight and discovery, when a certain young scribe - strapping on the pith helmet of moral inquiry - set out to probe into the far reaches of life in this sprawling, chaotic capital of the Islamic world. Here I am helping an old fisherman haul in his catch from the trash-strewn banks of the Nile; here I show two scruffy, barefoot kids in Bulaq how to write their names in a looping script. Here I play backgammon with a group of retired colonels and former diplomats, sons of the Revolution of ’52, who nervously talk politics over their Turkish coffees. “Nasser was the last great Arab leader,” they say, warily looking over their shoulders. “The political discourse in Egypt today is dead. We have no ideas, we have no imagination, we have no hope.”

To which I might reply, “Have you guys heard about Anna Nicole?”

For a week that started with such promise, it’s been a grand disappointment. I’ve spent the past three days shuffling up and down Talaat Harb, eating take-away shwarma, hacking into my fist, looking for all the world like I’ve had a near miss with some grave, unspeakable trauma. Mornings begin with a coughing fit that practically rattles the windows; at night, sitting at my computer and sorting through two months’ worth of photos, I stare wistfully at the man I was just weeks ago: so young, so spry, so free of mucus.

I’ve put in some serious time around the hostel, where I’ve drawn plenty of sympathetic nods and earnest offers of home remedies. It’s a convivial place, this Desert Safari, a stone’s throw from the Egyptian Museum, with views overlooking the clamor of Midan Tahrir. Throughout the day there’s a chatty group of travelers camped out in the common room, comparing notes from their guidebooks and debating visa issues around the Middle East. It’s a welcome change from my last place in Cairo, where the owner’s friends - a surly pack of chainsmokers - monopolized the lounge with a gruff, cheerless assembly. They sat puffing in front of the TV, their sleeves rolled up, their bellies pushing through somber sweater-vests, looking less like a happy-go-lucky bunch of hostellers than a conference of the Arab League. An air of wariness sat heavily in the room, a deep mistrust for the barefoot backpackers with their long plaited hair and casual disregard for hygiene. Now and then the owner would kick off his slippers, stride over in his snug khakis, and press me to arrange a tour to Memphis or Saqqara, his eyes narrowly set while the sweat beaded on my brow.

Ahmed, who mans the reception desk at Desert Safari, and has had to watch me shuffling miserably to the bathroom four times a day, gives me reason to hope. There’s a doctor two doors down who’s offered to give me a check-up - an unexpected turn of events, given the roster of low-lifes, miscreants and travel writers who fill your average hostel. He sweeps into my room with a neat little satchel under his arm, appraising the disorderly bed with a professional, disapproving eye. He’s a serious, somber man, dressed in head-to-toe denim and shaking my hand with gravity, as if he already suspects that the next wheezing breath will be my last. He gestures to a chair and pulls out his stethoscope. There’s a preliminary round of breathing and coughing, a few discouraged mutters under his breath. I hack and shift in my seat according to his commands, quickly realizing how pliant I am in the hands of a man of medicine. “Oh soldier of science, worker of wonders, ravage me with your brute clinical hand!” is what’s suggested by the grateful tilt of my head. He takes out a pad and scribbles an illegible prescription. In the lounge, Ali - another hostel employee - offers a cup of tea, his mild face registering the inexpressible pain that no amount of sympathy can salve.

He’s a sweet, earnest, avuncular guy, with silver bristles in his moustache and eyes that suggest depths of great sorrow. He grabs my hand and touches my shoulder with a show of warmth when I come out of my room in the morning. “Izzayak?” he asks, enquiring about my health. I bluff my way through a hamdullah - “Thanks to God!” - though my sniffles and coughs seem to spur him toward a place of immense suffering. He prescribes a remedy of honey and lemon, tapping my chest and breathing deeply to suggest how such a simple prescription will cure my woes. I offer him a Nescafe and we watch the soccer highlights from Europe. Now and then a young girl - her long, wet hair matted to her head and neck - comes padding through the room on her way from the shower.

My relationship with Ali has been a source of great frustration all week. His English is just a shade better than my Arabic, and our conversations quickly unravel in a pile of mangled verb tenses and misused pronouns. Try as I might to bridge the linguistic gap between us, the best I can offer is an apologetic shrug as he fumbles and flips through his phrasebook. Things grow more complicated one afternoon when he calls me over to the computer. He’s sitting in front of the home page for FriendFinder.com, an online social network whose sexual undercurrent is about as subtle as the hopeful hearts that dot the i’s in its logo. Whether Ali’s stumbled upon this site in an earnest attempt to find friends, or whether it’s something more lascivious he’s after, I can’t rightfully say. I’m wary as he enlists my help to build his profile. The stock avatar chosen by the site - a shadowy silhouette - only adds to my sense that something morally indefensible is unfolding.

We start modestly. “My name is Ali, and I live in Cairo,” I type. “I am learning English and would like to meet friends who can help me practice.” Ali, nervously pulling on a cigarette behind me, fidgets in his chair. He’s keeping a wary eye on the door, doing his best to make me feel like I’m complicit in the gravest of crimes. “I like to learn about different people and different cultures. I hope to make friends who will visit me in Egypt someday.” It’s the sort of profile you might expect from an autistic eight-year-old, a few lines pulled from a schoolbook of grammar exercises and vocabulary drills. But what can I say about this man with his mild, twinkling eyes who mops the floors and beats the rugs and shakes my hand energetically. “I’m hung like a fine Arabian steed. My thirst for you is like that of a camel which has made the long, perilous journey from Timbuktu.” It’s impossible to say what Ali wants from me, or what extravagant hopes have been opened in his heart by the site’s promise that he’ll “Have fun, meet people, & find love.”

We enter a chat room, “Hot Tub,” prompted by the dubious claim that “the water’s hot, and so are the people in it.” Ali taps on the screen, where an encouraging “F”, adrift amid a forlorn sea of “M”’s, has piqued his interest. He flips through his phrasebook, his forehead furrowed, his fingers moving quickly. “How do you do?” he asks, once he’s found his page. His eyebrows make entreaties toward the screen. Then he asks again, more urgently, “How do you do?” I begin to type, praying that some miracle of love and language will rescue me. The cursor winks and flashes hopefully, names appearing and disappearing as members enter and leave the room. I sit patiently with my fingers on the keyboard, wondering how far I’ll have to take this. Ali anxiously smokes over my shoulder until he hears footsteps coming from the hall. He gets up, clicks on the small X at the top of the screen, and smiles sweetly as a few young backpackers come tramping into the room. Then he shoots me a conspiratorial wink - “We’re in this together - to the bitter end!” - and thanks me, over and over, with a vehemence I hardly think I deserve.

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