Off for the Holy War!
149
butcher-shop chunks of raw meat hung from iron hooks. A
lively backgammon game was. in progress at an adjoining
table, with a half dozen tanned, turbaned fellaheen watching;
a camel train passed by, each camel linked to another by
ropes; down the street, a house was being built with mud
bricks. A fight started at the corner. The rush-bottomed cafe
chairs were emptied.
Moustafa had been suffering for some time with a sore toe.
In his last encounter with the Haganah a bullet had grazed it.
He showed me the wound, which had become infected.
"You had better see a good doctor right now before it gets
worse."
"I will go to the barber," Moustafa said. After our coffee,
we all went to the barber. While Captain Zaki and Mahmoud
were being shaved, the barber opened Moustafa's bandages.
Using only warm water to wash the toe, and no antiseptic of
any kind, he lanced it with a jack-knife. Then he used waste
cotton to bandage it.
"That man is worse than a butcher, Moustafa."
"Never mind, Artour. He's an Arab doctor."
"Yallah!"
Yallah this time was to the outskirts of Ismailia, where
Mahmoud said he wanted to visit relatives. Zaki stayed behind, giving the excuse that he was tired. We walked for
nearly an hour through the broiling sun, through one native
quarter after another, going slowly because Moustafa's toe was
extremely painful.
"Mahmoud must love his relatives to walk all this distance
in this dust!"
"He loves them very much." Moustafa and Sabri changed
glances.
At last we reached the outskirts, and came to the edge of a
large empty lot. Beyond this I saw more of the squat, mudbaked huts that made up the native quarters. This sand-lot
was particularly malodorous, or perhaps the wind was blowing
the wrong way. As we walked, a new form of stench filled the