406
CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
"Training Syrians. I'll train them in everything—from
bomb-making to artillery-bombing. My job is waiting. I will
get 560 liras a month."
"Stefan told me that the Grand Mufti had helped you
escape," I said.
"Ahh, yes. I know the Mufti very well. He cried when he
saw I had lost my leg. He is not rich. He is personally very
honest, but the men around him are crooks. Maybe he will
give me the ten thousand liras [about $3,500] he has promised
me for my marriage. Just yesterday he gave me two thousand
liras."
"I've been promised two hundred by the Mufti," Stefan
said, turning to me. "I'm meeting him tomorrow morning."
"I should very much like to come with you," I said to Stefan
as casually as I could.
"Let us meet here at ten o'clock and go together."
It happened that swiftly. I could not believe that I would at
last have an opportunity to interview the Mufti, whom I had
been trailing ever since leaving London.
MEETING THE GRAND MUFTI
STEFAN and I met as planned, and we hurried to tree-lined
Halbouny street in the residential section of Damascus. Half
a dozen guards milled before the black iron door of a house
midway in the block. The high stone fence around it—studded
on top with broken glass, in addition to its iron grillwork—
completely shut off the interior. We were searched, then our
papers were gone into thoroughly before the iron door opened
and we were commanded to sit on two chairs a good distance
from the house itself.
I found myself in a typically beautiful Damascus patio.
Poplars rose high, dwarfing the apricot, quince, pomegranate,
and fig trees that circled the courtyard. To the left were the