Off for the Holy War!
151
"What can Mahmoud be doing there all this time? Surely
your women can't be different from ours."
"But our ways are different/' Moustafa insisted.
At last Mahmoud emerged. He looked as though he had
been through a steam bath.
"What's different about your ways?" I asked Moustafa a
little later.
"First of all Mahmoud had hasheesh. Then he bought the
woman some. This makes much difference in what happens
afterward. You cannot cut short your visit. You can't!"
Moustafa and Sabri giggled. "This is why our method is different, and why Mahmoud was in so long. . . . After the
woman," Moustafa continued to explain, "he had a hot bath.
Now he can fight the Jew with a clean body."
MUTINY!
BUT it was I who almost died with a dirty body, for the next
night I was almost stabbed, with my back to the wall. . . .
After three days and three nights of forced confinement in
cramped quarters and continual frustration, the sizzling Arab
temper provided the final catalytic. Sharp distinctions arose
between East and West: Followers of Truth on the one hand,
and the Green Shirts on the other.
Sheikh Azaayim, leader of the Followers of Truth, was running low on the food we had brought. And the grocer, a tackheaded capitalist, was showing little appreciation for our noble
mission. He was gouging Azaayim with high prices for additio