Photo of mom and I in Egypt in 1997

This story is included in my book Dance Life: Movin’ & Groovin’ Around the Globe

Queens of the Nile

The night Stanley proposed to give me one million dollars to have a baby, I was sweaty and happy. Not from the offer of such an outrageous sum but because I had just danced with abandon to a heavenly song in a heavenly place. 

Our Nile cruise boat was moored in front of the 3,300-year-old temples of Abu Simbel on the edge of Lake Nasser in southern Egypt. My traveling companions—five gay men, informally dubbed the Queens of the Nile—were in the discotheque. It was late. Most guests had gone to bed tired from their travels, including my mother, who was part of this flamboyant posse. I sat on a red velvet banquette on the edge of the dance floor, sandwiched between Stanley and my fellow dance partners: Miguel, a bubbly Latino who could salsa like a Cuban master; Richard, an old friend of Stanley’s who had a rapier wit; Franco, who lacked personality but looked like a gent from GQ; and Ian, a mercurial opera singer whom Stanley was putting through college.

As I slid back onto the bench after another fabulously Arthur-Murray-esque contemporary waltz with Ian, my favorite dance partner, Stanley—the elder and initiator of this group of traveling queens—adjusted his cravat, leaned over, and whispered, “You and Ian are the perfect people to have a baby together. I’ll give you one million dollars and I can be the godfather.”

I guffawed, and then, knowing Stanley, stopped short. “My god, you’re serious!”

Stanley stared me down with his piercing, no-nonsense gaze. He had the eyes of a sharp-shinned hawk. “I need an heir. You two are the ideal combination of brains, beauty, and grace.”

“Stanley, Ian is gay. And 18 years old.”

I felt like I was scolding a child trapped in the body of a 78-year-old mega-rich eccentric businessman, whose assets included an Asian seafood import company, an upscale hotel, and a psychotherapy practice.

“You don’t have to raise the baby with Ian. I’ll help you. The million dollars is just a bonus.” He leaned back, his gold-and-emerald cufflinks clinking, like a reminder of his wealth, on the chair’s arms.

I shook my head. “I’m 44 years old! I have a teenage son. I’m a single mom. I live in San Francisco and you live in San Diego. And you are almost an octogenarian.”

“Think about it,” is all he said as he headed off to the bar for another Laphroaig Scotch whisky.

I stared after him.

Once again, the deejay played “Aïcha,” my favorite song by Algerian raï artist Khaled. The enticing music and captivating rhythm chased Stanley’s ridiculous proposition out of my head. The parquet dance floor beckoned. The disco ball spun out sparks of mosaic candy-colored lights. 

As the night wore on, everyone in our party had retired except me and the deejay. He kept playing “Aïcha” as he watched me and smoked a cigarette. I had the entire dance floor to myself. On one of my twirls and swoops, I noticed another pair of feet. A lithe woman had appeared and was also swirling across the floor. She smiled at me. We immediately recognized each other as sisters united in ecstatic dance. A few Aïchas later, she took my hand and led me toward a table in the more secluded region of the club.

A man in a turban sat there studying us. He stood as we approached, put his hand on his heart, and said in a soft voice, “As-salāmu alaykum”—a greeting in Arabic that means “peace be upon you.”

The woman introduced him. “This is my husband, Abdullah.” 

He was an elegant and gracious man. Tall, thin, chocolate-colored skin, gentle eyes. His turban was robin’s-egg-blue and his djellaba or caftan, pearl-white. 

“My name is Josee. I’m from Holland and Abdullah is Nubian. He only speaks Arabic. Please join us.” She had a funny singsong Dutch accent similar to Julia Child’s—like marbles were rolling around the words as she spoke.

As Josee patted the seat beside her, she asked, “Would you like some mint tea or a glass of wine?”

The disco ball scattered jewel-colored lights across Abdullah’s turban and djellaba, giving him the appearance of a Gustav Klimt painting. I was surprised Abdullah didn’t disapprove of his wife and me freeform dancing together. He appeared to be a devout Muslim, peppering his comments with In shāa llāh (god willing) and Al-amdu lillāh (praise be to god). In fact, that was the total of his conversation with me.

Josee wore a long, flowing, sleeveless dress like I did. She had cropped dishwater-blonde hair, no makeup, and did not wear a headscarf. “You two could be sisters.” Abdullah smiled approvingly and nodded as Josee translated what he had just said. He seemed pleased with our budding friendship and mutual love of dance.

“Where do you live?” I asked.

“On Sahil Island in the Nile near Aswan. Abdullah is the village chieftain. We mostly live outdoors on a cliff overlooking the Nile, though I do have a small kitchen carved into the hillside and a tiny bedroom. But we usually sleep outside. We have no electricity so the stars are my ceiling. Across the water to the west is the Sahara. It stretches 3,600 kilometers, all the way to the Atlantic shores of Morocco. Sand and stars and turbulent waters inhabited by crocodiles surround us.”

Living with crocodiles in the front yard got my attention. “Do you swim with them? I only have deer and squirrels on my property.”

She chuckled. “Yes, we swim in the Nile on hot days but we keep an eye out for them.” 

After Josee translated my question about the crocodiles to Abdullah, who also found it amusing, she said, “Abdullah wants to know where you are from.”

“I’m a fourth-generation San Franciscan and I’m traveling with my mother and five gay men. I’ve nicknamed our group the Queens of the Nile.”

Josee laughed and didn’t seem shocked, though I noticed she did not translate this for Abdullah. 

“How come you are traveling with such an odd group?” she asked. 

“Stanley organized this tour and invited my mom—she has a huge crush on him even though he’s gay and she’s married to my dad. She and Stanley are platonic best friends who often go on cruises together. Mom invited me to come to Egypt, so here we are—a weird dancing and prancing family.”

“How long have you been married?” I asked, intrigued by this exotic duo.

Her eyes twinkled as she recounted their romance. “Abdullah and I met in Cairo. I was working as the communications director at the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands and visited Egypt on holidays. We married three years ago. Our wedding was on national TV because of our unusual story.”

As the deejay dimmed the disco ball and packed up his music, I was about to bid my adieu when Abdullah motioned to Josee. She turned back to me and put her warm hand on my arm.

“Abdullah has invited you to join us in the captain’s quarters. He and his crew will play music. Abdullah might sing. You should come. Nubians are renowned musicians.”

I followed my new friends down a dark corridor to a private clubroom in the rear of the ship. As we entered, five men in gold-braided uniforms rose from their seats and bowed toward Abdullah. They seemed in awe of him and would not sit down until we were settled on the cream-colored couches. Abdullah was such a humble, soft-spoken man. I was curious as to why they treated him so reverently.

Everyone was silent. The captain raised an eyebrow toward the two officers holding doumbeks between their knees, and a soft finger tap on the rim of the taut hide of the ceramic drum led into a beat. The man next to them tuned his lute-shaped oud and began to strum, weaving his melody into their drumbeat. A faint, soulful wail came from another man who lifted a flute to his lips. The music rose like a cobra swaying upward from a coiled basket, twining with the other notes in a crescendo of Middle Eastern mystery.

Josee looked at me and asked quietly, “Do you like the music?” 

Before I could answer, a haunting voice joined in, sailing over the instruments. It was Abdullah. I closed my eyes. The sound was beyond human. 

A hush fell upon us and we leaned toward him, our faces turned upward. The officers silenced their instruments and Abdullah’s song filled the void. He took us on a journey to a divine place where there are no boundaries. 

Josee’s soft whisper brought me back. “He only sings when inspired.”

“Inspired by what?” I asked.

“God, Allah’s presence.”

“Tell me more, Josee.”

She nestled back on the sofa and took a deep breath. “We were just in Holland visiting my parents. In a supermarket Abdullah spontaneously began to hum, which broke into a chant, which turned into a song. Everyone shopping came to the aisle where we were standing beside the coffee and pasta, and listened, hypnotized. When Abdullah feels the presence of God he gives it a voice, not caring where he is. It is bewitching.” 

I glanced at Abdullah, envisioning the scene, not doubting that I would have responded exactly the same way as the others had in that supermarket.

“We were invited on this inaugural voyage because the captain hopes he will sing, which will be a great blessing for this new vessel. Abdullah is viewed as a holy man.”

With his eyes closed, Abdullah continued to croon. The only percussion accompanying him was the haunting noises of the ship creaking on the rocking waters of the trapped Nile. An undertone soon caught my ear—faint clicking sounds of leather heels. It was very late for someone to be wandering around outside. Then I saw the outline of a turbaned man with a rifle slinking past the window, silhouetted by the moon.

Noticing my concern, the captain leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “He is one of our watchmen who guard the boat at night from intruders.”

This only enhanced my temporary sense of fear. Just two weeks before Mom, the Queens, and I departed for Egypt, 58 foreign tourists had been killed by Islamic militants inside Hatshepsut’s Temple near Luxor. My dad and many of our friends counseled us to cancel the trip, but we followed my son’s advice. “Don’t let fear change your course.” Even at the tender age of 16, he was so Obi-Wan Kenobi and an intrepid traveler himself. “Besides, tourism will be nil so you will have the sites all to yourselves.”

Abdullah’s voice brought me back to this room where we were safe, serenaded by sacred music. Just when the platinum face of the full moon dipped below the lake’s edge, we said goodnight.

The next morning at the coffee bar, still mesmerized by the music from last night and captivated by the vision of Abu Simbel out the window with the sun rising behind it illuminating its grandeur, I eagerly sipped my latte. Just as the caffeine kicked in and I was plotting my day’s exploration of this extraordinary antiquity, I heard Stanley greet my mother—excitedly telling her about his proposal to create an heir for his empire.  

Uh oh, I thought. This isn’t going to go over well…

With trepidation, I turned around and saw Mom’s face blanch. 

“You aren’t going to do this, are you?” Her voice trembled as she looked at me in horror.

I patted her shoulder reassuringly. “Mom, Stanley is a mad scientist who just wants to create his ideal human.” Of course, it was a bit different than most megalomaniacs’ version as Ian was a kid and black and gay and I was past baby stage. I raised my eyebrows in warning at Stanley. “I don’t think I can even have a baby now and I don’t want one.”

Mom’s lips tightened into a thin line. My sweet, compliant mother turned on her beloved Stanley like a tiger. “What are you thinking?” she hissed. 

Stanley was miffed, as he usually gets his way. He shrank back as if she might strike, and his demitasse cup rattled in its saucer as he put it down.

“Okay, okay. It was just an idea. A good idea…”

Smoke poured out of Mom’s ears. I chuckled as Stanley slunk toward the breakfast buffet.

To distract my old-fashioned mom from her worries that she might have a grandchild fathered by a very black, flamingly gay man, I said, “I met the most lovely couple after you went to bed. He chanted in Arabic. It was divine.  I hope you stay up tonight if he sings again—they would like to meet you.” 

Her eyes lit up. “What a dream! We must bring them a gift. Perhaps a bottle of rosé from Meknes, though I’m not sure if Muslims drink alcohol,” she pondered, completely forgetting how angry she had been just a moment ago.

After breakfast we were allowed to wander through the temple on our own, unencumbered by guides or a schedule. Usually these UNESCO sites are inundated with tourists and the tour times are highly regulated, but since we were the only visitors, we had free rein to enter whenever we pleased. While all the other passengers were getting ready, I scurried the short distance across the hot sand so I could beat the herd. 

It was dark and quiet inside. Giant bas-reliefs of Egyptian gods peered down as I wandered through the hall and toward the vestibule in the inner chamber. Not even a buzzing fly broke the silence. As I entered the vault, I felt an odd sensation at the back of my head, as though I was a kitten being carried by the scruff of my neck. A spiraling wave filled my body and I began to sway in a circle without losing my balance. What the heck? I could barely keep my eyes open; I felt drugged yet filled with pulsing energy. My arms rose of their own volition and I began to whirl in place. I was dancing internally and feeling as though I was being pulled upward, yet my feet were planted firmly on the ground. 

Since no one else was there, and it seemed strange but not scary, I closed my eyes. It was as if information or knowledge was pouring into the crown of my head as I spiraled in a helical curve. It felt like a giant download of ancient wisdom or higher mathematical formulas or quantum physics. Something beyond my understanding. Whatever—I was possessed by the geomancy of this place. Was I standing in a particular zone of syncretic ley lines or an energy highway? It didn’t matter. I wasn’t resisting the experience, as freaky as it was. 

Suddenly, I was released back to my regular old self—standing in a windowless room carved into a sandstone mountain. 

At lunch, served al fresco on the ship’s deck, I didn’t tell anyone about the experience. After we had finished our baklava and Arabic coffee infused with cardamom, I asked Mom to come back into the temple with me. She was psychic and I was curious if she, too, would be possessed by the energies emanating from the inner sanctum. 

“Why do we have to go back now? I’m hot. I want to take a nap so I don’t miss the music tonight.”

“Come on, Mom, we won’t ever be here again.”

After a harrumph, she reluctantly followed me across the sand to the narrow doorway of the temple. The portal didn’t even come to the knees of the colossal statues flanking it—four identical figures of Pharaoh Ramesses II sitting on his throne.

As the light faded and the air turned still and cool, we entered the second pillared hall, greeted by statues of guess who—Ramesses—and Nefertari, his wife, depicted as a third of his height. Every other deity or royal figure in the temple was much smaller in proportion to the pharaoh. 

We passed through the vestibule and entered the sanctuary. I stood waiting in the same spot I had been in this morning, toward the back wall. 

Waiting. Waiting. 

I couldn’t shake my expectation that something special would happen—that the magic of the place would reveal itself again. 

Waiting. Waiting. 

Nothing. Just Mom’s restless scuffling as she paced back and forth, annoyed that I’d dragged her away from a nap. Abruptly, the supernatural vibes returned. This time I felt like a chess piece being moved across the board by giant fingers on my skull. 

It directed me to the wall again where the statue of Ptah, a god connected with the underworld, awaited. It was in the darkness of this furthest recess that the energies were the strongest. 

“Mom, come stand next to me,” I whispered into the echoing shadows.

“Why? What’s in that corner?” She walked over anyway.

“Close your eyes. Let’s meditate together.” Mom could relate to this because she had taught meditation in California.

As I felt the corkscrewing tornado-like sensation growing in the center of my head, I kept my attention on Mom. A smile alighted on her face. Her eyes were closed, and she was rocking back and forth. Her arms began to lift as she shifted side-to-side and I was worried she might tip over, but she didn’t lose her balance. She looked like a prop plane trying to lift off on a windy day. The two of us were captivated by this vortex. I moved in a spiral and Mom kept her arms outstretched as she continued to sway.

I thought we had the place to ourselves until a voice broke our trance. “Phyllis, put your arms down. You look ridiculous. What are you two doing?” 

It was Stanley, very annoyed to find us engaged in New Age woo-woo activities in the sanctuary. The psychiatrist in him had zero tolerance for occult phenomenon. 

Mom was unruffled by his peevishness. “Stanley, come over here and close your eyes. You won’t believe how powerful this place is.”

“For god’s sake, Phyllis. I don’t feel a thing except chilly.” It seemed like the energies that called to us were selective. No grumpy old gay men for their download! His tone made me think that maybe he was still stung by Mom’s utter rejection of his million-dollar-baby idea. “This is embarrassing. I’m going back to the boat for tea. If you two don’t show up by dinnertime I will know Scotty beamed you up.” The shuffling of his Italian loafers receded as he walked away.

Mom grinned at me, her nap long-forgotten. She was hooked. It was like psychedelics without the consequences. I had no idea what was going on in this place, but it was real and site-specific and we both felt it. We hung out in the inner sanctum for hours, each in our own un-medicated orbit. Occasionally another member of our cruise would enter the chamber, but they all hightailed it out of there as quick as bunnies being chased by a coyote when they witnessed our peculiar behavior.

Much to Stanley’s secret relief, we did show up for dinner. I think he was tired of wondering what we were up to and dreaded having to search us out again in some musty recess. 

To my delight, Abdullah and Josee joined us at our table. A glass of rosé loosened my tongue and I shared in whispers with Josee our inexplicably mystic experience inside Abu Simbel. I didn’t want any others from our entourage to hear, horning in and pooh-poohing the inexplicability of it. Josee’s eyes lit up and she said, “I want to go with you tonight.” She explained to Abdullah in Arabic about our secret evening journey into the temple, and he nodded his head, giving us a wink. 

Josee turned to me. “Abdullah thinks this is a grand adventure but he will not join us. The music last night tired him out. Sometimes the singing depletes his energy.”

First we had to sit through the tour’s sound and light show. With our posse and a dozen other guests Mom, Josee, and I perched on benches, staring straight up at the temple’s four enormous Ramesses statues fifty feet in front of us, lit in florid rainbow-colored lights. The overly dramatic Star-Wars-esque soundtrack boomed across the desert sands and rippled over the stillness of Lake Nasser. We waited patiently, sipping apéritifs, but when the last spotlight clicked off the three of us snuck back into the temple to our “launch pad,” as Mom now affectionately referred to the power spot. 

Josee was also sensitive to the spell the site had cast on Mom and me. With eyes closed, we all took flight and tripped the light fantastic. Stanley had gone to bed after the show, so there was no danger of him following and chiding us for our kooky trance dance.

Mom, Josee, and I had several more transcendent download dance experiences in various ancient temples. The grand finale was at the Temple of Isis at Philae, where we waited for our group and the other tourists to depart back to the boat before we danced and prayed and lost ourselves to the potency of the sanctuary where an image of Isis rested on a pedestal.

On the way out of the temple, I lingered behind Mom and Josee, not quite ready to leave the energy yet. Walking back out into the bright sun streaming through the colonnades, I spotted a red rose lying on the stones at the entrance. Its crimson petals, open and dewy-fresh, had not been wilted by the scalding sun. This flower hadn’t been there when I’d entered. Scanning the landscape from the platform, I could see there were no rose bushes nearby and no one else was in the compound. Perhaps this beautiful blossom was a gift from the goddess Isis—maybe she appreciated my dance!

Stanley gave up trying to get us to act “normal and civilized.” He even started to encourage our searches for those special magnetic places. Other people on the cruise were intrigued by our peculiar priestess-like behavior and, being a theatrical type and amateur actor, Stanley felt left out of being the star of the show. He didn’t exhibit any ability to connect with the spirits so instead, he began to strut around, bragging about our magical talents, especially when I showed up at lunch with the rose and the tale of how it had appeared out of nowhere.

“Very abracadabra!” he commented, waving his napkin like the Queen’s hankie. He immediately had the waiter bring a vase and placed my perfect rose in the center of our table for all to see. Later, Stanley pulled me aside and asked in an uncharacteristically shy tone, “Can I press it and keep it as a memento?”

On our return to California, Stanley bought the perfect trophy to capture the epic wonders of our trip to Egypt: a life-size replica of King Tut’s throne. It was meant to be in the “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs” exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, but it had a flaw so the museum auctioned it off to the highest bidder—Stanley. 

The last time I saw Stanley was on his 80th birthday, shortly before he passed away. He threw a monumental party for himself. One hundred gay men and I sat in the banquet hall of his hotel in San Diego. Stanley sat on a stage in a caftan, regally perched on his throne with my elegant, silver-haired mother, wearing a silk suit and nervously clutching her handbag, seated on one side of him. Ian sat straight-backed in an embroidered opera cape on the other side, holding a staff. 

My thoughts wandered back to our travels to Egypt together. What if I had taken Stanley up on his offer on that profoundly mystical night in a faraway land? I could have been Nefertiti sitting next to Godfather Stanley on that gilt and bejeweled throne, holding the million-dollar-miracle baby on my lap—a child who loves to dance and can sense the timeless energies that emanate from sacred places.

This story is included in my book Dance Life: Movin’ & Groovin’ Around the Globe