Philadelphia Is in Jordan
375
"Fiemen el lah, God be with you."
Putting my right hand over my own heart, I answered:
"Allah ma'ak. And God be with you."
LAST DAYS IN AMMAN
IT WAS dark when I emerged. The bazaars had already
closed, but the odor of spices and oils was still as strong as
on a waterfront. The dust had settled. A cooling breeze made
the evening pleasant as I walked through the side streets.
Stars appeared one by one as the twilight deepened into night
and city noises gradually ceased. Amman was blacked out. In
the dark I walked toward the Philadelphia Hotel, opposite
which the ancient Roman theater was outlined in the dim
starlight. I continued to walk, finding peace in this motion.
Now that the excitement of Jerusalem was over, I found myself homesick—for my real friends, for an American movie, ice
cream, a drive in my car. How far away they seemed. . . .
A siren wail pierced the night and reverberated through the
valley. I ran into a crowded cafe, after me a man and his wife,
then another woman. Though it was pitch dark, the women
kept on their dark veils, groping their way by feeling the walls,
fearing that a match would expose their faces. The all-clear
signal sounded in a half hour, and we left the coffee house.
. . . British radar, anti-aircraft guns, and patrol planes watched
the skies through the night, and we slept peacefully in the
Philadelphia Hotel.
The next day I met a group of English deserters who were
living in the Royal Air Force barracks on Amman's outskirts.
I knew most of them from Jerusalem, and took their pictures.
One of the boys—I prefer to identify him only as Sidney—
gave me a message to take to his parents in Birmingham if I
should ever get back to England: