Then came the Egyptian editor of "October'"
whom I knew − I do not know how I knew him,
but we had become friends,
and he asked: 'What do you want? How may I help you?'
I said: 'First of all to meet with Sadat'.
Sadat did not want to meet.
He was afraid this would annoy Begin.
So they made an outstanding Egyptian compromise.
They told me: 'Sadat currently cannot receive you, but his wife will be happy to'.
And then they scheduled a meeting
Mrs Jehan Sadat at 8:00.
We arranged that at 7:00 a fellow from the Egyptian Foreign Ministry would take me there.
7:00 − not a soul. 7:15 − not a soul.
And then, at 7:30 a young man appears,
dressed magnificently in a tailored suit.
In Egypt there was a law that whoever graduates from university has to be given a government job,
so the government was flooded with young men
who were not capable of doing anything, they had no role;
they stood in a corner and waited,
and this was one of them. A guy with a nice suit appeared.
Okay, I stifled my annoyance and said: 'Where's your car?'
He said: 'I don't have a car, we'll take a taxi'.
We leave the hotel, Mena House – where's the taxi? There is no taxi,
perhaps over there at the corner.
Okay, we found a taxi. To get from Mena House to the office of Jehan…
Mena House is at one end of Cairo, near the pyramids,
and Sadat's office was at the other end, near the airport in Heliopolis,
in Masr el Jadida − the new Egypt.
And we had to go during the day, in the morning, across Cairo from one end to the other.
This was no longer a delay – it was monstrous.
I am German, I cannot be late;
I feel physically ill when I'm late.
There's nothing to talk about being an hour late.
Eventually we arrived. Her office was in Heliopolis.
Mrs Sadat received us in her office amicably, didn't say a word about us being late.
Egypt. What is an hour?
On the way, I asked the guy from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs:
'What shall we do? We're more than an hour late! What shall we do?'
He said: 'Nothing, we just apologize nicely'.
I remember those words.
Okay, we apologized nicely, she didn't even seem to care.
And we began to talk. I really liked her.
We established a very good relationship.
She was a smart woman, sexy, beautiful,
half-Egyptian and half-British, something like that.
In the next room was a committee from her institute, and they waited.
'Not terrible, no problem'.
I conducted a long interview and published it in "HaOlam HaZeh".