100
CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
old, dressed in rags. Her individual toes were invisible because
of grime that had caked all over her—it had even worked its
way into her matted hair. Her face haunted me. There were
black blotches on it—and only as she came nearer did I realize
that these were masses of flies feeding on festering open sores.
She was holding aloft what seemed to be a doll. Then we saw
that the doll was actually an infant—perhaps one or two years
old, probably alive, although we could not see it breathing, or
hear it cry as babies do when roughly handled. The tiny infant
was in tatters, one mass of filth from head to toe. Its closed
lids were slits of raw, inflamed skin, the usual result of trachoma. The girl was now squealing in a shrill voice, hopping
from one pedestrian to another, begging.
"Is the baby dead or alive?" I asked Yusef.
He shrugged his shoulders. "Only Allah knows. If it is not
dead, it will die before long. The garbage wagons pick up
many of them every morning. The parents have so many children, and are so poor they cannot bury them. . . . Wait!"
Yusef walked over, gave the girl a few coins. She pinched
the waif's arm. It let out a thin wavering wail that sickened me.
"The girl says it is her sister, and she was born ill." Yusef
saw the expression on my face. "Wait, you will see worse
things in a minute."
A street urchin, carrying a shoe-shine box, accosted me—
the obvious foreigner. "Imshi!" I said. "Beat it!" The boy
kept backing up before me, pointing at my shoes insistently.
"If you don't tip him he will throw liquid polish on you,"
Yusef warned. "I shall hit him. It is the only language he
understands."
"Don't," I said. "I won't be bullied, and you won't hit
him."
The urchin edged up to me, his brush dripping polish,
poised to be hurled. As I looked at him coldly, his face
changed to that of an angered animal. His threat apparently
worked with most foreigners. He was now both furious and
frustrated, his teeth bared like those of a dog about to strike.