Damascus: Jewel of the Orient
399
Mufti, with whom he had conspired in Baghdad. . . . "Heil
Hitler!"
Amid the heilings I heard the sound of music. On the stage
an Oriental banjo-player and a drummer, both in shirtsleeves,
had taken their places. There began a monotonous, though
haunting melody with strings, and the beating of the forefingers on a long narrow drum. And now, despite the blackout, a small light gleamed on the stage. Into its soft glow a
woman stepped in bare feet, her flesh bare except for a thin
halter and veil-like covering below. She was a raqs-essurat, a
dancer of the navel. For a moment Truman and the Germans
were forgotten, and the men looked dreamily at the dancer: a
large, voluptuous woman, with double of everything by American standards—the acme of the Oriental conception of
feminine beauty.
She greeted the audience appropriately with her belly, then
broke into a sultry song to the rhythm of her quaking body,
the banjo, and the tom-tom beat of the drummer. I noted
that the technique of the Oriental belly-dance differed fundamentally from the American. There was no quick violent
climactic ending, but a slow, sinuous, sizzling gyration with
manifold twists and bumps, which reached semiclimaxes, subsided to gentle writhing, and then began all over again. It was
explained to me that this was intended to convey endless
Oriental pleasure, a marathon of love play which did not end
in quick exhaustion. It was intended to continue indefinitely,
save for brief pauses to partake of food, drink, and hasheesh
between orgies.
At times Fatima would stop her provocative dance and
croon an extraordinary torch song. She expressed passion not
by words or gestures, or movements of her body, but almost
entirely by her voice—which she used expertly to inflame the
emotions. Habibi, mi habibi! Love, my love! . . . She trilled
the phrase over and over two to three minutes at a time, her
low, moaning voice rising to a high-pitched crescendo, then
snaking up and down the scale with such depth of feeling, such