By Madeleine Kullmann
Seated in the middle of the cabin, its two slightly worn bunks framing the narrow space, headphones pressed over my ears, and the volume turned high, I cannot help but smile at the thought of the journey ahead. A night following the Nile beneath a cloak of darkness, watching through a fogged window the quiet bustle of small stations scattered along its valley. A sleepless night — the kind of romantic passage I have always imagined — tinged with nostalgia for what has been and anticipation for what awaits.
At Aswan station, in Egypt’s far south, where life unfolds with gentle ease, I pause to understand how to reach my train. This overnight service will carry me north toward Giza, near Cairo, where the celebrated pyramids rise from desert sands. I must look uncertain, for a man dressed head to toe in pastel green, cap neatly in place, approaches me with the quiet authority of a railway official. I show him my ticket; he takes my suitcase without hesitation and gestures for me to follow.
We rush up and down staircases, weaving through a tide of travellers, until the platform reveals itself — lined with tiny stalls selling tissues and every imaginable snack. He motions for me to sit on a bench, then softly requests a bakshish. Moments later, the train arrives in a chorus of screeching wheels and whistles, hurried farewells echoing against the metal. Tickets are checked, doors close, and I am carried away.
The carriage attendant leads me down a long corridor of varnished pale wood and wide windows to berth 307. He informs me that another “foreigner” will join at Luxor, halfway through the journey. I open the door with a flicker of childhood excitement — the same thrill I once felt unwrapping Christmas gifts in search of wonder.
Yet the surprise is not quite the same. The walls are faded, the bunks rusted. A louvred shutter, once lifted, reveals a world blurred by dust and moisture trapped between the panes. A steel table converts into a sink when its lid is removed. The setting feels worthy of an Agatha Christie tale — mysterious, slightly worn, quietly dramatic. The air is thick, the lone electric fan humming like a weary guardian of breath.
The train lurches into motion.
I unwrap the chocolate bar I had saved for the night, imagining it would feel like a small, private celebration discovered at the bottom of my bag. The overly sweet chocolate pressed between flavourless wafers — cardboard in texture — carries me unexpectedly back to childhood. Sponge cakes eaten in the park with sandbox friends, between shovel battles and dizzying slides. A time when life existed entirely in the present, untouched by anticipation or projection. Even here, suspended between departure and arrival, I struggle to remain within that same immediacy.
At 7:30 p.m., a knock at the door. The carriage attendant returns with dinner. Meals, to me, have always felt sacred — markers of time, invitations to shared conversation. Tonight, however, I dine alone. I photograph the tray, wanting to remember every detail. Plastic gloves slip over my hands before I lift the lid: saffron rice, strips of chicken, softened fries. For dessert, a fluorescent fruit cake. A lukewarm feast consumed opposite my own reflection in the mirror above the sink — an illusion of company in the narrow cabin.
Another knock. The tray is cleared. Night settles in fully, punctuated by jolting stops, distant whistles, and long gazes through the darkened window, searching the half-light for shapes in the landscape — perhaps even the outline of a forgotten pyramid.
It is only at dawn that I see one.
At exactly six o’clock, a final knock wakes me. Soft orange light spills across endless palms, and on the horizon, a pyramidal silhouette emerges from the haze. I stand at once.
Already, I feel nostalgic for a journey not yet complete — as though somewhere between the rhythm of the rails and the hush of the Nile, time itself had folded gently into my heart.
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