302
CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
halvah. I needed no persuasion. It felt good to take a mouthful of food without worrying about the next mouthful. The
Arabs had plenty. They watched me eat, and eat, for fifteen
minutes, in silence. Zaki had a mat in a corner, next to Ismail.
He spoke only once.
"The Armenians are not the friends of the Arab any more.
We now call you Arman Khayen [treacherous Armenians] because your Patriarch helped the Jews, He gave them food,
water, and guns."
I had eaten and rested a bit, and my strength had begun to
return. "I am very sure that that is a big lie which someone has
told you and which you are repeating to me," I said boldly. I
knew that Zaki was morally a coward who shrank from force.
"Tomorrow, when we go to the Old City I will take you to
my Patriarch, and you will hear from his lips that you are
doing an injustice to the Armenians, who are the friends of
the Arabs."
"You are American, not an Armenian," Zaki sneered.
"A child has no control when his parents leave a Moslem
country like Turkey and take him to an accursed land like
America for which, Allah is my witness, I bear no love. The
choice was not mine, Captain Zaki."
With this someone snuffed out the candle. Soon the
snorers' chorus mixed with other weird noises in the room.
The place became smelly, stuffy, heavy with the odors of perspiring bodies and unwashed feet. I began to itch, first around
the neck, then my ankles, my legs, thighs, chest, armpits. A
sleeping Arab rolled over and blew his hot breath against my
face. The Arab on the other side kicked my legs with his
sandals, unconsciously, I am sure. The heat and stench became more and more oppressive. What did I expect? I had
forgotten the East during my sojourn in the West.
"Ma'alesh. Never mind. It's Allah's will." Anesthesized as
well as exhausted, I sank into a sleep just after praying that the
crucial morrow would see me safe, instead of a prisoner—or
worse.