366
CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
"Aw, these Arabs think every newspaperman is a spy."
We walked on to the Philadelphia Hotel, finest in Jordan.
It was so crowded, however, that I was forced to share a room
with four strangers in a room in the annex. The place was
clean, and I was to find the food good. My roommates were
an odd assortment. One was Arab. Another claimed to be
Spanish, the third Belgian, the fourth said he was English
but I guessed he was a Slav. I locked my suitcase securely,
after which I had supper, then went to an outdoor movie
built on the roof of one of the city's main buildings. We sat
on squat bulrush chairs, with the stars twinkling overhead.
The audience was all male. Mild necking and hand-holding
went on around me between husky dark-skinned young men,
their khaffiyas flowing down their necks like veils.
The film was an Egyptian tale about a Bedouin triangle in
which a desert sheikh contrived to kidnap the fiancee of another sheikh the night before the wedding. The lover was
killed and the girl murdered by her father for letting herself
be kidnapped, and presumably kissed. As for the ending, nobody lived happily ever after. Thus Arab justice triumphed—
for there is no greater sin in the lexicon of Arab morals than
feminine unchastity. No one cares about the morals of the
male.
Except for three movie houses showing second-rate American, and first-rate British and Egyptian films, night life in
Amman was nonexistent. Amman was probably the only
Arab capital that had not fallen victim to such iniquities as
night-clubs, cabarets, and brothels. The city took pride in its
purity, but was apparently unconcerned about homosexuality.
With public dancing prohibited (save at British-sponsored
affairs attended by the foreign set) and concerts, plays, lectures, or any other type of cultural life lacking, the young
men of Amman could only spend their evenings playing
backgammon, attending the cinema, or sitting at a sidewalk
cafe listening to the blaring radio. They went to bed early
and were up at five a.m. Most shops opened at six. It was said