Off for the Holy War!
161
As our truck rolled on, I began to itch with more than the
usual vigor. At first I thought it resulted from my desperate
need of a bath. But the itch was a curious kind of an itch.
This was under the arms, and on my back, and stung like tiny
needles. Fleas? When the itch reached the crook of my arm,.
I rolled up my sleeve and easily caught the culprits—LICE! I
showed them to Moustafa.
"That's nothing," he said, scratching himself. "We'll get
DDT when we reach Jerusalem."
"Let's get it around here so that we can sleep tonight."
"I don't think you'll find any. Only the Jews have it." He
grinned. "You have clean blood, Artour. If you didn't, the
lice would not come to you."
"What do you mean?"
"Lice don't come to you if you have syphilis."
I don't know how true this is. On another occasion, while
Moustafa and I were scratching fiercely, he observed: "We
have fleas, Artour."
"How do you know they are fleas?" I asked.
"By the way they bite. Fleas bite different."
I never mastered the distinction, but I learned that psychologically the effect was different. Lice gave one the feeling of
uncleanliness, of guilt. But one laughed off fleas, perhaps because the pets we had back home usually had fleas in summer,
and no stigma was attached.
But it was no disgrace to get lice in the Arab world. It was
discussed as we discuss a common cold. Bedouin men and
women are lice-ridden from cradle to grave. To meet a Bedouin socially and not match his scratching is, as Moustafa
pointed out, a sign of uncleanliness. For me it was a badge of
success, for it meant that my initiation as a native was now
complete.
We arrived in Beersheba as the shadows deepened in the
west. Moustafa and Zaki reported immediately to the police
station, where we were all cleared. After looking around for a
place to sleep, we located rooms in a Moslem school, already