It Started in the Sahara

It’s been twenty-two years and still I am moved by the mysterious Australian woman. For our second trip Bridget and I bypassed Athens and flew to Rhodes, the base camp for the Crusaders to reclaim the Holy Land. We stayed in the servants’ quarters of a restored mansion. The room was small but romantic. The lone window opened onto a flat roof, a de facto patio overlooking the medieval town and the Turkish mainland across the strait.

While Bridget was showering, I noticed someone through our open window: a woman seated on the roof, smoking a cigarette. At breakfast I had seen her eating alone. In her late fifties, she was a demure woman with straight hair cut below the ear. My first instinct was to respect her privacy. But given her proximity, it felt rude not to acknowledge her. I have to admit, in the early days of island-hopping, I was eager to compare notes with independent travelers.

I wished her a good evening. She took a deep drag. Then she returned my greeting, betraying an Aussie accent. “Care for a cigarette?”

“Sort of.” I waved off my ambiguous answer, not bothering to explain that I’ve always envied the self-possession of smokers.

Still not sure if she wanted company, I ventured, “Have you been anywhere before Rhodes?”

“That’s a long story.” She blew smoke up into the night sky.

“I have some time.”

The woman considered a moment. “Why don’t you come out and sit with me?”

I tried to imagine what Bridget would think. A sucker for a good story, I crawled out the window. I perched beside her on the slanted part of the roof. Trying to read her cues, I stared at the shadowy minaret across from us.

“It started in the Sahara.” She spoke in a monotone, her eyes not surrendering the view. “I had signed up for a three-day camel ride, but one of those sandstorms kicked up, and three days became five.” I tried to imagine this meek woman sheltering in a cave with Bedouin shepherds.

“You see, I had always wanted to see the rest of the world, Paris, the pyramids, the Greek Isles …” Her voice trailed off. “My husband kept saying, ‘Sherry, just wait a little longer. When I retire, we’ll go together.’ Tom’s job involved a lot of travel. Involves,” she amended. “When Tom comes home, he wants to stay put. In thirty-five years raising kids, the farthest I’d gone was the hour drive to our beach house.”

She expelled a wistful puff of smoke. “The week before his big retirement party, he said, ‘I have to tell you something, luv. Siemens asked me to start a new office in Thailand.’”

‘But you promised,’ I said. ‘This was going to be our time.’

He wrote the salary on a piece of paper. It was an offer he couldn’t refuse.”

I broke in. “What did you do?”

“I made a list of all the places I always wanted to see. My dream trip. The next day I booked everything with a travel agent. Before I left, I gave my husband my six-week itinerary.”

‘You can’t travel alone,’ he said. “How are you going to pay for the tickets?’

‘I’ve already paid for them.’

‘You don’t know the codes.’

‘I’ve watched you enter them the past thirty-five years.’

He begged me to reconsider. ‘We’ll travel in two more years. Right after the new office is set up. I promise.’

I told him I was leaving tomorrow.

He pouted for the rest of the day. But in the morning, he agreed to drive me to the airport. Before I got out of the car, he gave me a going-away gift. A really expensive camera. ‘When you get back, you can show me everywhere you’ve been.’” Sherry shrugged. “My camera’s toast.” She gave a chuckle. “Sandstorm.”

We stared at the stars together.

“I’ve got no record of anything.”

“Then tell me.”

Her voice turned dreamy, “I saw Paris, London, Rome, Venice…” She took a ruminative drag. “It wasn’t so easy getting out of Cairo. With George Bush on a Middle East summit, the secret service detained me. They didn’t like that I had been to Algiers. This one agent said, ‘It defies logic that a fifty-seven-year-old woman, a housewife who’s never left her own country, would take a camel ride across the Sahara.’

I told him, ‘You sound like my husband.’”

She gave me a wry smile. “They stopped me again in Rome. ‘Is it that Algeria thing again?’ I asked. Evidently, I kept crossing paths with your president.”

Sherry lit another cigarette. “You’re the first person I’ve told this to.”

“What about the secret service?”

“I only told them what I had to.”

She waved her pack of Winstons. “Sure you don’t want a smoke?”

“No thanks.” I smiled.

“The Paris airport was worse. We had been waiting at the gate for five or six hours due to a freak thunderstorm. We were all getting antsy. Suddenly the man sitting next to me collapsed on the floor and I gave him CPR.”

“Are you trained in CPR?”

“I’ve watched enough ER.” She raised her eyebrows. “It turns out he had only fainted. I can’t remember his condition, but he needed to get home for some special medication. The weather had cleared by then, but every time I went up to the desk, the stewardess said her hands were tied. She kept telling me how many planes were ahead of us. Finally, I leaned over the counter and said, ‘This man is dying. Call someone and move things around.’”  

“What happened?” I asked.

“They put us in the front of the line.”

I could see Bridget moving around our room now. I needed to wrap this up. “So, what’s next?”

Sherry continued to stare off, as if the night might yield the answer. “I’m not sure.”

I waited her out.

“My husband expects me to fly home tomorrow.”

        She took another drag. “But I’m not the same person.”

Even now her unassuming audacity makes me emotional. Several times I’ve tried to fit her into my novel, but it always felt like she was crowbarred in. After I wrote this blog, I realized that she is the original inspiration for my main characters. Both Kathryn and Lulu spontaneously launch odysseys that threaten to shatter their status quo. No matter what resistance they face along the way, external or internal, they keep going.

I wish I knew how Sherry’s story turned out. We never exchanged any information. She deserves her own story.