After some time, tired from his swim and tired from his trek in the desert, tired from...being tired, Beni fell asleep in the cargo hold of the riverboat, selecting a tough, frayed coil of rope and a bag of straw to rest upon, which was scarcely different from sleeping on the hold's floor. It seemed like a moment since he had fallen asleep, but it had apparently lasted well onto the next day. The next day, Beni awoke to hear the sound of a ship's horn outside and the rapid Arabic chattering of dock workers. Quickly shaking his sleep away, Beni scrambled out of sight just as a gaggle of gowned, turbaned crewmen came down the steps. Hiding in a smelly fish barrel, Beni took care not to even breathe as the workers passed the area, because even despite self-preservation, who could even breathe in air in a stinky barrel of fish? The crewmen, conversing in Arabic, took out some ropes and straw, the same straw that Beni had been laying on moments ago, and headed back up the steps, leaving Beni alone once more, and as he crouched in the barrel he suddenly remembered: if the ship's horn was sounding, then the ship must have made port! Every square inch of the vessel would be check from top to bottom and he would be found, hauled off to court, found guilty of desertion and stowage, and carted off to that stink-hole laughingly known as Cairo Prison. With that, Beni looked around, thought quickly, and leapt up out of the barrel, spotting an open porthole, and leaping through it, back into the drink with a loud splash and a squawk. Swimming underwater and to the docks, Beni headed inwards towards the least peopled area of the dock, climbing up a wooden pole that lead to a warehouse filled with straw, horses, donkeys, camels, and several crates, a number of suitcases among them.
It didn't take Beni Gabor long to see that not only was he drenched and barely dressed, much less that he was drenched and barely dressed in a river-port in Giza, and could be found easily. Thinking fast once more, he pried open a suitcase and quickly snatched clothes randomly out of it: a dark shirt and trousers, along with a belt and set of suspenders. Hastily donning the pilfered clothes, Beni hopped out of the crated area barefoot, unknowing that while his new change of clothes fit tolerably and covered him, it was certainly not something typically worn in broad daylight: he had filched a set of pyjamas from a suitcase. But beggars cannot be choosers, nor can impromptu thieves...and yet neither can be too content with only a small amount of potential booty.
Beni wandered the ports and found a shoe and sandal vendor, employing his most valuable of assets: theft. With those sticky fingers of his, those sticky fingers that had landed him in the position of Legionnaire so many years back, he pocketed a set of leather sandals and ran off, no one suspecting a thing. Beni then took a black rag that was used for shoe shining, because of all things needed in this climate, he would certainly need some kind of neckcloth.
As he strode on through the hot sandy ground of Giza, Beni began to look around for a few other things that might serve him use, and found one: a hat. Any desert-goer will say that a hat is always a vital component of one's dress, whether in the desert city or in the sandy plains themselves, a hat is always needed. The hat in question was a native fez, red with no tassel and made of felt. Beni had eyes for no other hat, be it fedora, trilby, bowler or driving cap, just this fez would suffice: in a twinkling, Beni stole the hat before the vender, a surly-looking giant of an Egyptian, could notice.
The final items to be taken were perhaps the most valuable: his icons. Beni knew deep down that if anything could be said of him, it was that he was not exclusively a religious man, but a superstitious one as well. Beni had some feeling in life that he was damned if he did and damned if he did not, so, as he saw it, if he served one god and one faith, he would be tethered down to it, and if that faith and its followers fell, he would go down as well. So, continuing his life as a Jew, he surreptitiously thumbed through the other religions of the world, from Christianity in its many forms to Shinto, Buddhism to Islam, and all the while attending each faith's Sunday services, praying to each god, often raising his head from prayer to see just how many shekels or piastres were in the collection plate while keeping a watch for any witnesses. Taking a cross from a sleeping vagrant, Beni helped himself to a few other icons as well once he had seen a vendor that sold charms, taking one of each symbol that he could find, though his sticky fingers passed their due when he stole not only symbols but a few keys as well, thinking them to be perhaps some obscure cult's icon.
Dressed in this unlikely combination, the little Hungarian set out looking for a place where he could perhaps steal a meal, eyeing a local restaurant with some interest as a piping-hot plate of kushari sat before a prosperous-looking Spanish tourist, who removed his straw-coloured hat, tied a white cloth to his neck, and was about to dig in with an expression of great relish on his moustached face. With more hunger than caution, Beni filched a glass of water from a nearby table and splashed it at the tourist's head. The tourist angrily interrupted his meal and turned around to find whoever threw the water, not knowing that whoever-threw-the-water was already laying his grimy hands on the bread basket and kushari, which he took without the plate (as he was in such a rush that he never thought to take the plate as well. The tourist then arose from his seat to chastise the kitchen staff for the apparent insolence while Beni hightailed it out of there with a basket of bread and a hand dripping with noodles, vegetables and liver before the tourist could even see him. Beni reached an empty alleyway where he sat down on an old crate and licked his already-filthy fingers clean of tomato sauce and vegetables.
Finally, since it was more than his life's worth to steal enough money to gain passage back home (in Budapest, he was a wanted man and always would be), Beni decided that it would be more prudent to reside in Cairo, working whatever jobs he could find until such a time as he could obtain money enough to reach Kőszeg, where he could be as far from Budapest as possible and still be home.
But what job could the little thief possibly hope to obtain? He would have to find out soon, wouldn't he?