200
CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
my suspicions, because if the two got to quarreling, they
would split company, and I needed the services of both to
return safely to Jerusalem.
We were due to leave in a few days. On Palm Sunday I
went to the Armenian Church in Cairo. I felt the need for
meditation. In our Church there are no one-hour-on-the-hour
Masses, nor 11.00 to 12.15 services. Our chants are sung like
arias, and take twice as long. It takes five minutes for the congregation to sing the Lord's Prayer. The Armenian churchgoer is no clockwatcher. Every Sunday service is in fact a
religious marathon, a colorful, devout, emotionally inspiring
pageant that begins before nine and lasts uninterruptedly
until about one p.m., often longer if the priest is young and
has not fasted, or if a bishop visits the church. In the United
States, services have been abridged to last three hours.
To conform with the elaborate ceremonies, no tiny lapelbutton palm could satisfy the Armenian. Nothing but mansized palm leaves, from two to four feet long, are distributed
on Palm Sunday. I picked one of these, and waved it on my
way "home" to the Gloria. I determined I would hold on to
it as long as possible as a symbol of peace and good will, lest
I myself succumb to the bloodsoaked, hate-wracked environment in which I found myself. It lay on the bureau in my
hotel room until we got ready to leave Cairo. Then I put it in
my suitcase. I carried the shriveled palm branch wherever I
went, all through the Arab-Israel war, all over the Middle
East—a frustrated missionary in quest of peace in the wartorn postwar world—a forlorn hope! I would look at it on the
bureau, where I placed it in every hotel room in which I
stayed, and say: "I wonder if your day will ever come."
I have the palm leaf home now.
Early one afternoon Moustafa rushed in. "Yallah!"
I had been all but packed for days, restive with the long
delay. It was getting unbearably hot and sticky, and the dust
of the incredibly filthy Cairo streets stuck to my face, got into