Courtesy prevailed however, and as we withdrew I contented myself with saying only, You are on your way to Khartoum, I presume. A long, arduous journey.
-Guardian of the Horizon, Elizabeth Peters
Mahdi Abu Jaib’s friend Ali al-Hajj accompanied me on that first midnight flight from Cairo to Khartoum forty years ago. Mahdi had said to him, Ali, Take care of the Khawaja. The flight took only a couple hours. It was the journey back with KhairAllah, to whom Mahdi’s father Bashir had said the same thing, that was long.